


Connections

by shortlived



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Main Video Game Series), Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types
Genre: Kalos-chihou | Kalos, M/M, Mega Evolution
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-21
Updated: 2019-03-12
Packaged: 2019-08-27 04:16:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 79,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16695259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shortlived/pseuds/shortlived
Summary: There's no one else like Green to Red, but that doesn't mean Red knows exactly what Green is to him.Really, it never used to matter—until it finally had to.A story about Red and Green in Kalos, Mega Evolution, their pokémon, and defining their undefined relationship.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mochawhip](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mochawhip/gifts).



> for mocha. pizza.

Green's got a nice little pad in the heart of Kalos, or so Daisy tells Red, but the journey to it is anything but. He spends what feels like an hour fiddling with the ticket machine to book a ferry, some small mercy granted when a member of staff knows enough Kantonian to help him punch in an order with a sympathetic smile, and next comes the three day ride from one side of the ocean to another, with little in the way of entertainment.

Some of that time he spends listening to the other passengers, both involuntary and not; trying to pick out from snippets of their conversations words he understands, to string it together into a topic that makes sense. He doesn't care to eavesdrop, but it's one of the ways to scratch the itch of boredom that seeps into him halfway through the first day, and to reassure him that his four months in Unova left him with some further knowledge of the language beyond the "yes", "thank you", "no", and "sorry" he went into it with.

Unsurprisingly, it turns out a person doesn't pick up much when they spend most of a trip out in the wild than in the overpopulated cities.

He does find one or two people to talk to during the trip, other trainers who approach him while he has his pokéballs laid out before him. The subjects are mostly the same — about pokemon, what they'll be doing, how long has he been a trainer? are they? for how long? — and they always end the same, awkward and stiff. But he appreciates the interruption from his usual methods of distraction, of re-reading the one magazine he allowed himself to buy from the ship's shop, and trying to follow the dramas playing on the one TV screen in the lounge area.

Still; it was easier just to listen to the humming of the ship's engine, the ocean's waters being sliced into ribbons, and to daydream of the lands he'll see.

They dock into the port outside Coumarine around noon, the day warm and vibrant, the city itself a five minute walk away. Lazy waves rock the yachts that line the small piers greeting him, with tiny buildings sitting stacked side by side across the cobbled stone sidewalks, their awnings shading customers sitting around tiny circular tables. Everything about it hits Red immediately in every way; from the squawks of wingull and pelipper eager for scraps, the smells of more than the stale, dull air of the restricted boat, and the freedom his feet now have to move, regardless of how sluggish his legs are to actually use. He knows he has a destination to get to, but he takes his time climbing the steep hill roads overlooking the city below, before reaching the train connecting Coumarine to Lumiose over a vast and desolate terrain.

The noise and sun of a city left behind continue to stick to him inside the speeding carriage, even as the scenery changes to a rusted landscape of lifeless mounds. He presses his cheek to the window pane for its cool relief, but the low vibrations rattle through his skin and into his bones, repelling him away. Restless, he scuffs his heel against the carpeted flooring, but the agitation continues to build.

Closing his eyes, he does his best to ignore it: thinking back on the conversation that brought him all this way, and why he was going through all this.

And even the thought of seeing Green after all this time.

It'd be worth it, soon.

 

* * *

 

 

 

_Where the hell is this street._

 

 

 

* * *

 

"What— _Red?_ "

Green stands wide-eyed, gawking, his face worth a thousand pictures. But by that point Red doesn't even care; he pushes his body into Green's, nudging for him to move aside.

"Yo, let me in," he grunts. "It's too hot out here."

Green obliges, not having any other choice with Red already halfway in. Objections are stammered out too late behind his back, but all Red pays attention to is the couch he spots ahead of him, his feet leading him over on  auto-pilot, hands already dealing with the straps of his backpack. He falls onto the cushioned surface with the same force his bag does the ground, but he couldn't feel any lighter in that moment than he ever has his entire life.

He lets out a sigh of content. A phantom of the weight he's been carrying heaves down on his shoulders, but a phantom is still a lot less than the real thing. There's nothing but the outside world in his ears, coming through some window to his right side; a sound of noisy streets and foreign voices that were already ringing away inside his eardrums. If he could mute it without lifting a finger, he would.

All he can manage is to roll his head, letting his cheek press against the soft material of the seat. That's fine, too.

Gradually, he does try for doing more: peeling off one shoe from his foot, and then gathering the strength to get around to the second one. Motion blurs behind his eyelids without him even moving, yet he could still find a way to fall asleep easily despite it.

—until a foot kicks his sharply, and he winces, grunting.

"Hey, moron. Get up before I dump this over your head.”

Begrudgingly, Red opens his eyes, squeezing them to remove the bleary halo that's formed around the figure looming over him. Green stands shadowed as the light hits his back, his sour expression unmistakable.

He shoves something cold towards him, bold and contained. Red blinks.

It's juice.

"Thanks," he says, ignoring his body's grievances to sit up enough to take it. But Green's already turning away, minding the coffee table behind his legs.

"Yeah, well, you look like you walked through the badlands without supplies." He peers back over his shoulder. "You _didn't,_ did you?"

Lips already around the glass, Red hums vaguely before tipping back his head. The flavour hits his tongue better than anything he's had for days, and he drains half of it in seconds, licking at his lips and the inside of his mouth at the aftertaste. Green's slumped into a chair opposite of him, leaning at an angle with his elbow rested on the arm, his chin in his hand, staring directly at him with a narrowed gaze.

Red stares back.

"So?" Green starts impatiently. "You going to explain how you found me, or what?"

He plans to, the answer sitting in the back of his throat, but it takes Red a moment — he's distracted, still taking Green in from where he sits. He looks and sounds the same he always has, but he's different, too: with the usual mess of ginger hair, the same chestnut eyes; but it's his nose that's thinner, his jawline sharper, more mature. It makes Red's gaze want to follow the lines of his neck down to the collarbone peeking out from the folds of his shirt, to a body of longer limbs than he remembers.

Green sits back in his seat, his brow knitted as his hands drop over his lap. "What?"

—Oh. Right. "Daisy invited me," Red finally answers, ignoring the distracted silence. Green looks less willing to do so, but eventually lets the tight hold of his brow go.

"Sis? She didn't say anything to me."

"That's 'cause it was a surprise. _Surprise,_ " Red deadpans, to which Green rolls his eyes. "I had to get here from Unova anyway."

"From Unova?" _That_ gets Green’s attention. "Huh... Never took you for a Unova kind of guy. Then again, I never took you for a mountain hermit all those years back." He scoffs. "So, you came all the way from Unova — for what? Change of scenery? To see me?"

An obvious smile begins to curl at the edges of Green’s mouth at his own joke; but one spreads knowingly across Red's too, his stomach turning giddy.

"Kind of.”

He sets his drink on the glass table with a clink. With his body disagreeing with this—or any—course of action, Red uprights the bag at his feet, digging into a sidepocket to pull out the reason he came, heavy in his hand: A spherical stone the size of his fist, coloured in sunset tones and dense in the centre. Carefully, Red sets it onto the table between them, only letting go once he was sure it wouldn't roll. When he leans back, he sees the shocked recognition now set into Green's face.

"Mega Evolution," Red confirms, his smile widening even more. "The professor told me you came over here to study it."

Green reaches for it, golden hues spilling over his fingers as the light hits the stone. He turns it this way, that, quiet as he examines it.

"Where did you find it?" He eventually asks.

"Won it in a battle."

"You _won_ it?” Green repeats in disbelief.  “What, did the guy think it was _junk?_ "

Red shrugs. At this point, he doesn't really care. "So it _is_ a Mega Stone?" He asks, more interested in that answer.

"Could be." Green gives it another once-over before setting it back onto the coffee table. "Looks like the ones I've seen, but it's different. Hell, it could be junk; there's plenty of fakes rolling around Kalos. We'd have to get it checked out by someone who knows more about them. _But,_ " he cuts in, interrupting Red's opening mouth, "you're not going to find out anything by tonight. The lab I know about's closed, so we'll have to see them in the morning. It's what happens when you turn up unannounced around dinnertime."

And just like that, the air and zest deflates from Red like a puncture wound, leaving nothing but the petulant question of _Then now what?_ in him, a hard frown settling in. He knows there's things to talk about; catching up, telling Green about Unova, extracting more info about Mega Evolution from him, what his experience with it has been, who does he use it with...

Well, the Mega Evolution Q&A was one he was keen to discuss, but the rest makes the fog in his head heavier just to consider. Later; they had all the time in the world to catch up about the little things.

But for now, a more appetising plan was on his mind, his tongue rolling over his lips. Green did just say a magical word….

"So — what are we having for dinner then?" Red asks innocently.

Green's eyes narrow.

Dinner is unfortunately a return to the outside world. It's a reveal worth grumbling over, but the way to the pizza place isn't as tiring as the circles Red went in while trying to differentiate the multiple parks spread throughout the city just to locate Green in the first place. Nevertheless, Green doesn't spare him as he translates every ingredient on the menu when they find a spot by the window, Red cutting in halfway with an exasperated "cheese— just get a cheese one," but Green waves off his insistence to show his skills in how to fluently pronounce _tomates,_ _poivrons,_ and _poisson._

Green babbles on. Red sits squeezing his eyes shut to dull the drowsiness behind them, until the waitress comes over to take their order, and he sits up. Green rattles it off effortlessly, only stumbling once on a word, but recovering with a smooth smile and tone that's familiar to Red's ears in any language.

"Show off," he says, once the waitress leaves.

Green snorts. "If I can impress you ordering pizza, just wait 'til you hear what else I can say. Did you learn a lick of Kalosian before you came here?"

"Oui."

"Uh huh. Anything else?"

"Oui. Non. Oui?"

"Reeeal cute,” Green mocks. “How far do you think that's going to get you around, again?"

Red shrugs at that. "Daisy said I could stay with you."

" _Daisy_ said—" Green's voice flares as his expression twists, then abruptly he catches his tongue. Holding onto that scowl for a good second, he sighs loudly, grumpily. "Sure, trust Daisy— well, don't think you're getting more than a couch, got it? There's one room, and that's mine. You're lucky it's just easier to keep track of you until we get that stone of yours checked out." He leans forward, close to squinting. "And anything you eat, you're replacing."

"Stingy," Red replies, unable to hide his smile. Green ignores it.

" _Smart_ , big mouth. "

Their pizzas arrive before long, and Red gets Green to share what he knows about the stones and mega evolution over the gooey cheese. He explains how the process isn't as easy or simple as handing an evolution stone over to a pokémon: it required as much concentration and feeling from the trainer as it did the pokémon.

Feeling?

He can't explain; you'll know it, if your stone's the real deal and one you can use. But, Green says, his face gleaming — you'll love it. It's a different kind of battling. It's the way a pokémon battle should be.

 _Should be_. The words stick with Red for the rest of their meal. But as soon as they're out of the door, Green jabbing him in his side when he yawns and the streetlamps popping to life above their heads, all Red can focus on is recounting every complaint he's had those past few days, carrying their conversation all the way back to the apartment.

His memory of all else becomes a blur. He remembers an awful retelling of his interpretation of the Unovan soap opera that'd been playing on repeat during his boat ride, the smell of coffee making him frown, the taste of it making him frown even harder; pulling out a pamphlet with the map of Coumarine, Green repeating the name, adding an accent to make it more authentic — and then trying to get Red to repeat words he deemed useful. Whatever words, words that didn't follow him to the next memory, of waking in the early hours of the next morning, a blanket not his pulled over his body.

How for the first time Kalos is quiet, and calm.


	2. Chapter 2

Red finds he doesn't like Green's nice little pad.

It's not a new revelation that morning; he had determined that much yesterday soon after he'd arrived, from the instant the beige curtains made his eyes strain as badly as the sunlight pouring between them had. The early hours are easier on him, the curtains kept drawn until later on — when he would discover they didn't hide large windows, but double doors leading out onto a small balcony with a couple of potted berry plants — and allowing the interior to be coated in a layer of grey. 

But the problem was, that most of the apartment was already coated in a solitary colour. Other than the seats, the marble countertops in the kitchen area, the black rim of the TV set that sat in one corner and the legs of the otherwise transparent coffee table, it was all some dull tone of white. White bookshelves, white drawers; the walls white, white ceiling, and even the ceiling too. Red sat on the couch, taking it all in, the quiet of the room — an open plan sort, or so he'd call it, with the kitchen in plain view from the living room — eerie, and impersonal.

Even Mount Silver's snow-dusted paths all those years ago felt warmer to him.

He busies himself soon enough, showering away yesterday’s sweat and clipping on his trainer's belt on, returning the familiar weight of his pokémon at his waist. He then searches through the one attractive white bold form in the apartment, all threats to his wallet easily forgotten as he takes out eggs and meat from the fancy fridge. The sizzling of food brings some comfort to the apartment, and Red decides to be adventurous by sticking on the TV for background noise, tuning into what he guesses to be a breakfast show, with people sitting on couches and chatting away.

Unsurprising, because some things never change, Green doesn’t emerge once during all the activity. Red raps loudly on the door of his bedroom once he finds it, Green nothing more than a bundle of limbs under a cover and a mumbled slurring of dismissals and grumpy reassurances at the same time. Red eyes the size of the bed with a squint, then leaves the door open as he returns to the living room, turning the volume to the TV up high.

Green pads into the room before long, face scrunched in disapproval for everything around him and more. It doesn't change much as they sit for breakfast: Fork in hand, Green stares at the platters of food laid out on the countertop.

Specifically: "You took out five different kinds of cheese."

"Yeah,” Red responds.

"For breakfast," Green states.

"Yep."

_ "Why." _

"'Cause I wanted to try them," Red replies airily. He points to the plate. "Do you actually eat that blue one?"

"Bleu de Gex. And — sometimes," Green answers too quickly. "Anyway, are you sure this is edible?"

Green gives a few pokes of the eggs on his plate suspiciously, one — or, alright, maybe two — yolks broken in spots, dried drips down their sides. Red frowns around his toast.

"Are you blind? They're fine. Just eat them."

He doesn't seem convinced, but he digs in anyway, taking a small bite of the egg and meat, and chewing slowly. Red could kick him; the worst part of it was, he was sure he wasn't even doing it intentionally to wind him up.

Green eventually swallows it; and then, with a pause, he gives a tip of his head, lightly shrugging.

"I guess they're alright," he says. "Just didn't think you'd know how to cook, being on the road so long."

Red shrugs back, tearing another bite out of his toast. "There's nothing hard 'bout eggs — 'cept boiled eggs."

"I'll kick you out if you do that again."

They end up putting most of the cheese back in the fridge and moving the washing to the side of the sink, with Green reassuring Red he'll remind him to actually wash it later. It's only 8 o'clock, but Green says that he wants to get to the lab early, and they need to feed their pokémon. "So there's no excuses when my team kicks yours asses," he grins.

Green's Machamp helps take the food from a storage cupboard down to the back of the apartment complex. Someone other than Red might call the space a small garden, but it was mainly a patio with a narrow patch of grass, one of those wooden picnic tables with slabs of wood attached for seats tucked close a corner, and a bike rack near to the gate that led out onto the street. Their pokémon look odd to Red in such a tight space once released, everyone but Pikachu tall or bulky or a combination of the two, and as they come out, they each gather in their own groups — his team on one side, Green's on the other.

Apart from Snorlax and Green's Tyranitar, who both appear to care more about the food brought to them, the two sides share quiet glances, unsure what to think of one another. But they eventually turn their attentions within themselves, with Red turning his back to Green to fuss over his team; bending on one knee to cup Venusaur's smiling face into his hands, Lapras twisting her long neck to meet him on the way up for a pat, a "hey", while Charizard attempts to hide the glances she gave his way, waiting for her turn. But he knew, just as he did to be more subtle in his affection, sliding his palm along her jaw and giving an easy, "let's go flying soon, yeah?", a smile, and how that quick nuzzle she gave was all she likely dared to give around the other company.

Blastoise was already dug in with Snorlax, but grins anyway at his trainer's approach, Snorlax only sparing a garbled grunt. As usual.

Red gives his promises they'll do more later, soon, once they finished some business, maybe they can see the ocean together finally — and it tempts him to forget about the professor entirely, to map out a route to find something more worthwhile about this region.

But if they were lucky, that's exactly what the professor would provide.

 

* * *

 

Professor Sycamore swishes out his arm, displaying the Mega Stone in his hand as he shares in accented Kantonian: "Well! I say it's highly possible it's a Mega Stone, but we won't know for sure without a proper examination. What an exciting new discovery!"

He flashes a row of white teeth, the kind reserved for models in advertisements, which Sycamore could've been, easily. High cheekbones, a light stubble, blue hair styled with curls that frame his face, his shirt's collar even popping out from his lab coat, Red knew he was the kind of guy that some people would have a hard time tearing their eyes away.

Red had trouble peeling his eyes away currently — but that was from the stone in his hand, fingers long and bony enough to wrap around it, but far too animated for what it was he was holding. Green stands with arms folded, seeming perfectly comfortable, if slightly amused.

"What are you going to do then, run it against the database 'til you get a match?" Green asks.

Sycamore nods. "That would be the plan. We can test it against the pokémon at the institute, and your own, too, if you plan to go there."

"Sure. This guy," he cocks his head towards Red, "owes me a battle."

The professor gives a small chuckle, patting the stone against the cupped palm of his other hand. "Red," he says, and Red snaps to attention. "Have you noticed any activity with the stone since you got it?" He shakes his head. "Well, the testing rooms will give us more information. We use them to... ah, to put it simply, we can read the energy produced. Invaluable data comes out of institute about pokémon all over the world! And most importantly, in helping us understand Mega Evolution."

Sycamore walks to a cabinet and pulls out from inside a metal box, sitting it on the desk next to him and procuring something in his hand; all the while holding the gold-coloured stone. He returns with it and a closed fist, turning it upright, and presenting both to Red. "I'll let you borrow this key stone, just in case. Please, have an amazing match!"

The fist unfurls. In it is a smaller stone, vaguely transparent, and with a twisted colouration in its centre, similar to the one within the larger Mega Stone. Red has both in his lap when they make their way to the battle institute in the city by taxi, Green to his left, and one of Sycamore's assistants in the front seat. 

"You'll want to hold onto both for now." Red lifts his head, spotting the woman — Sina — watching him through the rear-view mirror. "But if your stone's the real thing, then you'll want to keep the one the professor gave you, and give the other to your pokémon!"

"If he even can pull it off," Green interrupts. "Not everyone can do it. Let's not get too excited, yeah? We don't know if it's worth anything to him yet."

Sina waves a hand dismissively. They pull up outside a grey building, slim and inconspicuous when partnered beside a larger old-fashioned hotel with wide windows and mahogany panelling curved around each corner. Red enters last, keeping back as Sina speaks with the receptionist next to a computer and a rope barricade, enjoying the air conditioning of the entrance hall while quietly examining the minimal, bare interior.

Green suddenly knocks him on the arm. "Hey, they want your trainer ID. It's the same deal as gyms."

He points to where the women wait, and Red hurries to rummage through his back pocket. He hands over his trainer ID, watching it be swiped through a reader in one motion. The woman then nods, and gestures for them to go into the rooms behind her. Sina leads them down into a corridor, explaining the process of how she'll collect the data from their battle.

But Red isn't listening to that. He's listening instead to the growing pulse of his heartbeat, the louder flow of blood he can hear in his ears; the tingling on his skin, and each hair on the back of his arms coming alive. Mega evolution, this new exciting process — the way battling should be, Green had said. He was going to see it, maybe even experience it for himself. Would he? He wanted to, but at the same time, it wasn't all that mattered to him: all on its own, the thought of going up against Green after so long was enough to make his fingers twitch, and flex.

He glances sideways to Green. Green catches his eye, and smirks.

Sina doesn't join them in the room, and waves as she leaves them at the door. Inside, the layout is like most battling rooms: Rectangular, with the field split into half by painted lines on the ground, reaching on each end and providing slits where the trainers usually move around in. Height is provided as well for the flying-types, so much so that Red cranes his neck to spot the roof. For the size it looked outside, the inside seemed twice as big.

"Well?" He lowers his head back down at Green's voice, who stands at the other end with a poké ball in hand, the other reaching into the top of his shirt. "I hope you're ready, 'cause I'm tired of waiting."

Green lets his necklace dangle in view, and then, Red sees it: A stone, similar to the one Sycamore gave him. He realises suddenly he never asked Green which of his pokémon could achieve Mega Evolution, or if he did, he doesn't remember. But it doesn't matter now. Red takes a ball from his belt, his smile spreading wide.

He touches the brim of his hat, and nods.

They throw simultaneously, revealing their picks on a burst of light: Pikachu standing on his hind legs, and Green's Alakazam with digits pressed ready upon the spines of his spoons. Green scoffs from his side, Alakazam's arms stretching out ahead, and with it, a sudden pattern forms before the psychic-type, and a light envelops Green's necklace. Mega Evolution—

"Thunderbolt!" Red throws out a hand, and Pikachu meets the command without delay, electricity building around his cheek pads and then discharging across the distance within seconds like a flood. Yet somehow, that's not enough; a shell-like casing surrounds Alakazam all the same, the noise of whipping air muting out the thunder's, and then — it breaks, pieces shattering in every direction It sends a shockwave through the room that causes Pikachu to backflip to regain his balance, and Red, shielding his eyes of the light, even feels his feet stutter under him, all the way across the other side.

When he withdraws his arm, Alakazam no longer stands: He's floating, multiple spoons hovering above head, calm and unwavering. Green stands unfazed, grinning broadly. "Did you think a move like that was going to interrupt us? This'll be too easy!"

Red eyes Pikachu — slightly ruffled, but fine — and makes quick examination of the situation, before sending him shooting toward Alakazam with a Volt Tackle. But it makes impact with the wall that materialises before it from a Reflect, bouncing Pikachu backwards, who barely finds his footing. Red calls for a Brick Break, going for offence and speed. They couldn't allow Alakazam a second to move first, and Pikachu ignores the daze of his previous attack to spring into the air with his tail illuminating, ready to slice through the barrier—

"Psychic!"

It doesn't connect. Pikachu floats frozen mid-air, a pink aura surrounding him which follows him and his cry as he's flung into a wall, bouncing onto the floor. Red spots Green making a motion before calling for another Psychic, and he hurries to call for a Thunderbolt again, even as Pikachu drags this time in getting up. His cheeks begin sparking, but for the few seconds he needs, they're too much. Alakazam disappears from his side of the field in a blink, reappearing before the rodent pokémon and surrounding him in a stronger hold of telekinesis. Pikachu squirms, then squeals as the pink hue builds, crushing his limbs into his sides.

Alakzam pushes itself backwards, Pikachu following suit, its spoons bent as if the curved heads were watching him. "Thunderbolt! Break free!" Red calls out, knowing it'll be the pokémon's only chance, and the yellow mingles first with the telekinetic power, then begins to shred through it, making contact.

But Green's voice cuts into the air — "That's not going to work!" — and the light from the jewel on Alakazam's forehead blinks with colour. The spoons swing to point in Red's direction, and Pikachu is sent flying again, towards him, with a force and speed that Red just manages to meets with, catching his partner against his chest, but getting slung backwards for the effort and onto the ground.

A dull ache pulses in his back, making him wince. But it's Pikachu's quiet whine on his lap that gets him to open his eyes, his arm wrapped around the small figure. The exhaustion is apparent when Red gives a gentle "Hey", and the pokémon's brow creases slightly, but his eyelids don't lift. 

"Do you see that?" Green shouts, while Red gets up onto his feet, Pikachu tucked safely to his chest, ignoring the small pain that comes when he arches in his back. "Not even your Pikachu can break through our power. Ready to call it quits, Red?"

The taunting tone is a familiar one, but there was an odd note to it, not as loud as it could be; not worry, but a slight strain. Red looks across the distance, Alakazam hovering close to his trainer once more, and Green — there was nothing changed about him, the smirk etched into the hard press of his lips. But his chest heaved, his shoulders lifting and falling noticeably with each breath.

Mega Evolution — it required as much concentration and feeling from the trainer as it did the pokémon.

Red opens Pikachu's pokéball to return him, clipping him back onto his belt while procuring another from the other side. "Why?" He asks Green's question, feeling the weight of the ball in hand. "Are you tired already?"

"As if," Green retorts. Red huffs, a small laugh in his throat, then throws the ball to release his next pokémon. "Snorlax!"

The ground grunts when his feet make contact, a hefty yawn leaving his maw almost obliviously to his surroundings. "Snorlax, huh?" Green remarks from the other side, waving a hand. "It won't make a difference. Let's go, Alakazam!"

At Red's instruction, Snorlax's round paws pound into the ground as he charges towards Alakazam. The psychic-type disappears as it had before in an instant, appearing in the opposite direction of Snorlax, behind him, his own instructed Psychic deployed as the spoons knock heads together, the jewel blinking, and the familiar pink energy beginning to cover Snorlax as it had Pikachu.

It was just as Red expected. He calls for a Shadow Ball as Snorlax's feet start to creep a few inches off the floor, and the glow of Alakazam's power breaks from the energy building around Snorlax's paws, shrinking away. Snorlax succeeds in forcing his arms back enough to throw one blob, then a second, staggering the pokémon as his feet find the surface again, and he readies to send off more.

—But it's met with the same transparent wall that had gotten in Pikachu's way shimmering into effect. Alakazam watches from behind it, the shine of his gem flickering.

Snorlax lunges for him, this time the wall hardening to Snorlax's body slam, but Snorlax but doesn't relent in pushing forward, even while Alakazam attempts a second time to take control of his limbs. But they understand the telekinesis's weakness, and Red's throat vibrates as he gives the call for another shadow ball, directly into the wall — and with it still contained his fist, Snorlax punches it through the barrier, and directly into Alakazam. He's sent smacking onto the floor, losing his composed balance as the spoons dangle wildly mid-air, facing downward.

It leaves Alakazam open. Snorlax spreads out his arms as he throws himself against the pokémon, crushing him fully under his weight. Red can't see more than the feet of Alakazam thrashing, but he's sure he hears the clatter of what must be his silverware finally dropping, and the snap, desperate wisps of psychic power attempting to knock Snorlax's head from side to side. But Snorlax's endurance persists, while Alakazam thrashing doesn't, coming to an end.

A red light masks Alakazam, a beam sending him away inside a pokéball. Red turns to Green. He's removing his jacket, face flushed, throwing it aside.

"Alright," he breathes, pushing at his fringe with another ball already in hand. "Don't think we're finished yet. This is just the beginning."

" _ —Green? Peux-tu m'entendre? _ "

The voice, unmistakably feminine, somewhat familiar, echoes into the room soon after Pidgeot is called out, wings spread ready to take flight. Red searches for the source while Green answers it in the same language, catching Sina in what sounds like a question. Sina responds back eagerly, and when she seems to finish, Green looks to Red, and begins to walk over.

"Time out a second. Red, can you show me your stone?"

Red blinks, but meets Green halfway, taking out the Mega Stone from his pocket as he does. It seems no different to him, but he hands it to Green anyway, seeing more clearly where rivulets of sweat once trailed. Green doesn't say anything, turning back to his Pidgeot.

Sina speaks Kalosian again over the intercom, and Green mutters something, which Red doesn't catch — but he does understand the alarm in Sina's voice as Green holds out the stone to his pokémon while taking a hold of the one around his neck.

Red walks a few steps towards him. "Green?"

It starts as it had before: the shell encompassing itself around Pidgeot, the light splintering through the gaps in Green's fingers, shining brighter along the ridges of Pidgeot's transformation. It builds, all the air being sucked from the room like a vacuum—

And then it erupts outwards, rocketing, Pidgeot's shrill all Red hears before it turns into a single, high-pitched note in his ears.

White sears Red's eyes even as he squeezes them shut. He rubs at them with the bottom of his palms, calling out to Green; feels the name on his lips, but he doesn't hear a thing. He tries again, and then a third time. The fourth time it comes through, as quiet as a murmur, his sight slowly returning with the white receding, splotches of dull colour returning to the floor beneath his feet.

Red looks to where Green and Pidgeot had been. Pidgeot staggers in place, head drooped and shaking erratically, feathers bristling on end; but Green is a harder find, and Red searches as he starts to make his way over. He spots him then, thrown some feet away from where he'd been standing; now down on the ground, body limp and motionless.

His pace quickens until he's at Green's side. Bending down, he squeezes at his shoulders, giving them a light shake. "Green? Green, wake up—"

 

But he doesn't speak, and he doesn't stir.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if the french is bad, feel free to let me know. it'll be used sparingly.


	3. Chapter 3

"That had to be the stupidest idea I've seen in a while."

"Hey, I nearly pulled it off, right?"

"You pulled off a stupid idea à la perfection," Sina replies, and Green flinches as he touches the back of his head, hissing. "Don't worry, your head is still intact! This time."

Red stands from his chair, walking over to the infirmary bed Green sits on with his legs dangling off the side. "Pidgeot's fine," he says, handing over his pokéball. "He was agitated, but he wasn't hurt."

"Was it too much energy, maybe?" Sina guesses. "The monitor I was watching on did show it receiving the energy..."

Green shrugs, sitting the ball under his hand on the bed. "Who knows. The professor will be able to check the recording, won't he?" Sina nods, and Green begins moving off the bed. "Right, then until then— erk—"

His feet stumble under him. It's Sina who catches onto him first with an arm over his stomach, Red getting a hand to his shoulder a second after. "Take it easy," she chides, but it doesn't take long for Green to push the both of them away, swatting his hands in their direction. "Alright, alright, I'm okay. You should take a guy to lunch if you plan to be so grabby."

She puts her hands on her hips. "Me, or him? It's the man who's meant to invite the lady out to lunch! Not the other way round."

"Well, what do you think I'm doing?" Green throws her a wink. "Allez, amusons-nous un peu."

"J'ai pas le temps de jouer." Her shoes begin to clack against the tiled flooring as she heads to the door, and she looks over her shoulder to Red. "I'll let the professor know what's happened. You should make sure Green doesn't hit his head around anymore for today. Au revoir!"

* * *

 

"She's interested," Green brags before taking a bite into his lunch roll. Red pauses with teeth hovering around his own, then digs in, pointing out through a mouthful:

"No she wasn't."

Green shoots him a dirty glare, nose crinkled in disgust. They've found a park not far from a baguette shop, dropping Alakazam off for a massage ("He wants one, and he deserves it") while Pikachu soaks up the sun from Red's lap, dozing away with an expression far more content than it had been earlier ago.

And Snorlax much the same, snoring away behind their bench, much to Green's dismay.

Red chews slowly, watching the activity around them. The loud liveliness of the city still persists, but the worst of it, the sound of car engines and endless shoppers, are dulled by the same tall buildings that bring them in. From where they sit, only smaller businesses seem to circle around the side of the park on their end: the usual coffee shops, an art gallery, and what appeared to be a men's tailor, with crisp suits on mannequin displayed behind glass.

In sections like this, where he doesn't feel the entire city vibrating in the space between his skin and flesh, it's beautiful; more beautiful than Castelia had been. With vivillion fluttering over flowerbeds and shrubberies, trees bracketing the entrance onto pathways that all lead towards a gushing fountain at the park's centre, the Unovan capital was never as green, walls of grey and glass climbing skyward endlessly. He spent as little time in the economical heart of that region as possible, yet the looming structures followed him for miles, the towns and cities not as far apart as those in lands closer to home.

Still, after the fourth furfrou done up to the nines, watching men in vibrant-printed suits and one woman even wearing a hat in the shape of a heart ball, there was something so peculiar to him about the city, making him frown. "Is everything always so...fancy here?"

"Hmh?" Green mumbles, before swallowing his food. "What're you talking about?"

"Everything. Everyone." He looks pointedly around the park, at the people in clashing fashions, the fifth furfrou coming along the path where — was that a hat, or was it's fur shaped as a hat? "And you," he throws in, giving Green a look up and down.

But it's not really the same. With his jacket hanging off the back of the bench, a long-sleeved shirt rolled up to the elbows and cargo pants not too baggy, he looks no different from how he would've dressed back in Viridian. It was back where Red first started noticing the extra sheen to his hair, the way he double-checked himself in reflective surfaces, and took longer in the mornings to come out the house.

Kalos didn't bring out any new change in Green. He was already changing.

Green laughs anyway, raising an eyebrow.

"Really, Red? You're such a weirdo." He picks up his drink, sipping through the straw while looking out to the park himself. "It's just the fashion of the region. Everywhere has fashion, even Kanto. Most people care about how they look at some point in their life, you know. It's not our fault you're an anomaly."

"I'm not," Red protests, a little too weakly. Green scoffs.

"You dress like you did when you were eleven."

That gets Red to pause. He lifts a hand to pinch his shirt between his fingers, beginning to looking down — but his hand knocks against something else entirely, and flings out. Pikachu whines and flicks his disturbed ears irritably, before burying his head deeper into Red's lap.

Heat tints Red's face, and quickly he demands, "Tell me about Sycamore," before stuffing as much of the crisp bread, tomato and cheese into his mouth as he can. Green makes no comment; but he doesn't need to, when his tone says it all.

"He's deep into the research over Mega Evolution and learning everything about it. I've been letting him record some battles with me and Alakazam since it helps me too. He gets his research data, and I get free access to the battle institute and the pokémon they have on loan. It's win-win for everyone involved." He waves a hand. "He holds seminars at the university I'm studying at too. He's quirky, but it's either that, or—"

"Yowrwh—" Something — like his food, for instance — lodges in the back of Red's throat, and he chokes, coughing into his hand before grabbing for his drink to wash it down. He takes a moment to catch his breath, voice rattling as he knocks his chest with a fist. "Y-you're in university?"

"Uh — yeah." Green's staring at him, until he decides to roll his eyes. "Don't you remember? I've wanted to go since we were kids. Always wanted to have a big— well, uh," he fumbles, coughing, hurries along; "I'm doing a short course, covers the basics, you know. That kinda thing."

It's not enough to distract him. "What about the big thing?" Red pries. "What did you want?"

He leans into him, sure he sees the tip of Green's ear flush, and a hand smacks him in the face for this; Green going, "Alright, alright, go away," pushing at him as he pushes back, his words muffling into the palm. Pikachu gets knocked off in the chaos, puffing his cheeks indignantly. 

With lunch finished and Alakazam picked up, they spend the next couple of hours looking browsing a portion of the city, Pikachu forgiving Red enough to nap against the crook of his arm and chest. They head to a shop called the Stone Emporium, where Mega Stones sit on top small velvet cushions, displayed with high price tags, Green explaining further the history of Mega Evolutions at his nagging: about their place in Kalos, that he'd learnt how to perform Mega Evolution at a city called Shalour, and how he'd found the stone for Alakazam - an alakazite - while in Sinnoh with his grandfather.

"The museum thought the stones were junk," he says. "Can you believe it? They were planning to throw them out when one of gramp's old friends took them and shared them with him. I recognised them," he adds in a boastful tone, "and I was the one who suggested getting them properly checked out. Pretty lucky, huh?" 

There's little Red needs to say to prompt Green into talking. Once he gets going, he has plenty to comment on, some building to point out, or some sort of complaint: sometimes about the everyday hassle of living in such a big city, and sometimes about him. "You have more than that shirt, right? Like proper clothes?"

"These are clothes," Red argues.

"They're rags."

"They're comfy rags."

Green rolls his eyes.

"You're a mess."

It's later while they're in a supermarket chain, buying milk and eggs and extra shower cream, that they get the call from Sycamore. Green takes from his pocket what looks like a slim card, presses down on a panel, and a small 3D projection of the professor scans out from the top, displaying him from the waist up.

Red stares. Then, balancing a carton of eggs and a bag of brioche in one hand, he pokes a finger through the body, swishing it and distorting the image — and startling Green into nearly dropping the device.

"Green? Ça va?"

"No— everything's fine," Green breathes, shooting Red a dirty look, then begins moving to find somewhere better to speak. "I'm just stuck with a moron. What's up?"

"I wanted to see how you were doing, but it looks like you're doing fine. Terrific!" Sycamore's hands clap together, and whether it makes a sound, Red can't hear over the clatter of footsteps and the passing trolleys of other shoppers that spare them a glance, then turn away. "By the footage Sina sent me, it should be easy for you to establish a link with your Pidgeot, but trying to mega evolve a pokémon after already evolving one is risqué."

"No kidding," Green says, finally stopping by the cereal section. Red comes up to the side of him, eyeing the pair, and then leans closer to maybe get into frame — if that's how the thing worked, anyway.

"You know what to do, so I won't give you advice." Sycamore pauses then. "Ah. Red doesn't have a pidgeot himself, non?"

"Er, no." Green glances at him, looking unsure. "We haven't talked about what he's going to do with the stone."

It takes Red a second to understand. He then blinks, and says simply, "I'll let you have it."

"What? —You're sure?"

"What am I going to do with it? It's useless to me."

Green says nothing at first, looking away from him and the phone device; and when Red thinks to speak again — What are you worried about? Do you want me to charge you? —, Green turns to the Holo-Caster.

"Sycamore — do you still have the blastoisinite?"

"The blastoisinite?" The professor repeats. "Yes."

Green points a thumb Red's way. "Let Red borrow it. He's got a blastoise, and you want more samples, don't you? He came all the way to learn about Mega Evolution, he's not the kind of guy who'll run off with it, and all it's doing right now is sitting in your lab."

Red turns wide-eyed to Green, while Sycamore rubs at his chin thoughtfully. "Well," he starts with interest, "you are right. Since you have a blastoise then, Red," and he looks to him now, Red looking back, "would you like to try it?"

Try it. He was offering a stone. A stone for Blastoise, to do what Green had done with Alakazam. The thought of it dazes him, but he nods, rather animatedly, his eyes still wide. Sycamore grins, nodding back.

"Then if you're willing to share your progress with me, come to the lab whenever you're free. I'm looking forward to working with you, Red!" 

* * *

 

The light from the bedside lamp ricochets off the rock as Red holds it above him, its body smooth and dented in areas like an uncut evolutionary stone. The one he'd seen inside the Stone Emporium store earlier that day had been rounder, as had Pidgeot's stone, almost like glass, more weighted to hold.

_Sometimes, you get stones like these,_ Sycamore had told him. _They might've once been evolutionary stones, changed over time due to exposure to an outside energy._

He closes his hand around it, pointed edges pressing in, and digging in further as he rocks it gently against his palm, lowering it to his chest. Feeling; Mega Evolution required feeling. Would he understand, when he tried it? Him and Blastoise, doing as Green and Alakazam had. Green's blotchy skin, the patches where beaded sweat had trickled down his forehead, pushed aside with his hair.

"No," comes a voice heavy from above, and Red opens his eyes. Green stands with nothing but pyjama bottoms hanging on over his hips, a towel around his shoulders for his damp hair. He holds onto the ends, arms obscuring most of his chest, but the same lightly tanned tone that Kalos's warm weather has done for his arms can be seen there too, leading all the way to his belly button.

Red feels a light kick in his stomach before he turns his gaze away. "What?"

"Get off."

"Off where."

"Don't play cute. My _bed!_ "

Red turns over onto his side, showing his back to Green as he stretches; and sighing loudly, obnoxiously, just for him. "What's the problem?" The question comes out languidly. "You can fit three people on this bed."

"The problem," Green enunciates sharply, jabbing a finger into his shoulder with each word, "is you."

"I gave you a Mega Stone," Red huffs childishly. "Stop being a baby. I'm not going to cuddle you in your sleep."

Green scoffs behind him, and he can hear his footsteps on the soft carpeting. "You're unbelievable. Why did I even let you in in the first place?" A door creaks open; a dresser, or wardrobe or something. "And for your information, I got you a stone back."

True, but it's not the reason he doesn't bother continue to argue. He listens to the sound of shuffling left with their silence, a click of some sort, and then what he sees to be the shirt that Green's put on when he circles to the side of the bed he faces. Green's bottom lip continues to stick out with a crease at his brow, eyes staring down at him that Red meets indifferently.

It all barely loosens when Green sighs, rubbing the back of his neck as he turns away.

"...I'm not going to sleep yet. Got some reading I want to catch up on." There's a strange, awkward note in Green's tone, even as he hurries to add, "so don't complain about the light, alright?"

He walks over to the desk by the farther wall, where books and a laptop cover the surface, rolling back the chair to sit down. Wordlessly, Red watches his back, his movements; wondering if they're natural, or as stiff as they seem, all because of his presence there, too.

A soft infrequent clicking soon begins. Red listens to it, eyes drifting close - aware, himself, of Green in the room with him, him on his bed. Him, in this apartment of his. This apartment he so readily invited himself into without a second thought. 

It's strange. It's only hit him now how strange it is, and to be in this bed, expecting Green at some to come over at some point, join him. It's not that unreasonable, but he admits, if too late, how few people did that, ever. 

But then: there was no one he knew who he'd be this way with, either. 

Discarding the stone onto the bedside table, he falls asleep eventually, thinking instead of what's about to come.


	4. Chapter 4

Shalour is a seaside city to the west of Lumiose, near the port city he'd arrived in, and the tower Green had been taught Mega Evolution a short walk from it. Early the next morning, Red began making plans for the trip: search out a map, find somewhere to exchange the Unovan currency he still had on him, maybe save on money by crossing the badlands on foot, or at least ride a distance on Charizard's back—

"You can't."

Red stops and blinks, arm shoved into his backpack, hand still holding his clothes. "What?"

Green stands, arms crossed. "What do you think you're going to do when you get there?" And when Red doesn't answer, he points out, quite bluntly: "You can't speak Kalosian."

Red blinks again.

* * *

 

So he doesn't go to Shalour. There's no option of training with Green either when he shares "I've got plans", slinging on a jacket. "I'm busy most of the week. We'll sort something out later."

Which leaves Red to his own devices. Which was fine; he doesn't remember a time when he hasn't been left to them, no one else but himself and his pokémon to consider. Unova and his handful of known words hadn't stopped him, and Kalos had no reason to be any different.

Except the problem is, it  _ was _ . There was no other goal in Unova than to _ experience _ ; and that goal was the same one he carried everywhere with him worldwide. But Kalos had been different the moment he'd made the decision to come: it had another purpose, and to be halted from doing what he came here to do made him acutely aware how displaced he was to his surroundings.

"It's your own fault," Green had grinned, a lilt to his voice. "Guess you'll just have to find something to do."

What he found to do was to mope around Lumiose for half an hour, until deciding to find a better use of his time.

He buys a map as he'd planned, locating a travel bureau for the few foreign notes he still has, and takes with him a holiday book for Kanto from the wall rack to browse later, just because it's there, and free. Afterwards, quickly tiring of the same old city sights filling his vision, he leaves by one of the southern exits into a long, stretching garden road unrolling for as far as he can see, the smell of flowers reaching his nose before he reaches them. Hedges dictate pathways, and some deterring off into alcoves, offering quiet getaways where flowerbeds and curled benches sit, which Red learns to avoid after the third time poking his nose around the corner curves.

Not everyone cares for the roads made by the fine-trimmed hedges. Skitty pounce into them, wiggling into gaps made by previous escapades, and the ledyba scuttle on top, hiding as people past by with their pokémon. Red stops before a split in the path, where small white pokémon mingle amongst the flowers that line around topiary sculpted after creatures he's never seen before, and thinks about his pokédex, about what data already exists on them — but he hasn't upgraded it in a while, and he doesn't know how to ask anyone around for a name.

His fault.

Red picks himself up, interest diminished, and continues forward. Two girls past him, chattering and giggling, a pair of pichus in their arms. Idly, he rests a palm over a pokéball — and it rattles under his fingers unexpectedly. He slows his walking to a stop, clicking it off from his belt and feeling its weight in his hand.

It rattles again.

Pikachu scrambles onto his shoulder instantly upon release. He rubs his scratchy pad cheek to Red's, getting a small laugh out of his trainer--and then, Red decides, to take out Venusaur too, just for good measure: because who would enjoy any of this, the gardens and good weather, better than her?

Venusaur groans loudly, pleasantly, the leaf over her head wafting as she takes in her surroundings. She then raises her chin to look back at Red, letting out a gruff noise.

And something slithers up Red's arm, nearly making him jump until he sees it — a vine, coming from under her leaf. She tugs, making his feet stutter and bump into the back of her legs, even as she begins to walk. Pikachu chirps eagerly into his ear, and suddenly, he knows what they're doing.

With a spring in his step and his chest warm, he moves beside Venusaur to amble along at her pace. Her interest is genuine; stopping at the flowerbeds, nosing at the flowers, lowly cooing curiously as they bob up high into the air like loose thistle seeds. Some drift around her flower, their squeaks tiny, hard to hear, and one swoops past Red's face, going to Pikachu. Pikachu leans out, small black nose sniffing the air, and the pokémon bops him with its body, fluttering backwards towards its friends with tinny squeaks.

Pikachu sneezes, looking bewildered afterwards. Red rubs him between his ears, only realising then the grin on his face when it can't grow any bigger.

He can't find it in him to mind when the weathered voice of one of the gardeners calls out to him, nodding to his Venusaur, nothing but their smile to give any indication to what they might've said.

Red just nods, smiling back, and continues on his way.

* * *

 

"The dots must mean there's a gym. See? There's eight of them. What do you think?"

The map rustles as he holds it up for Lapras to see, her head already poked over his shoulder. She hums thoughtfully, sing-song in delivery and dragged out while she leans in to closer inspect it — and then nuzzles her face into the side of his, throwing him off-balance. The map flutters to the ground, his elbow hitting the dirt.

"What was that for?!" Red barely gets the question out over his laugh, straightening back up. But Lapras has already deserted him by the time he looks over his shoulder, washing her head in the water of the stream she floats in, shaking away the excess. Humming after, of course, in her oblivious sing-song tone.

"You're not innocent," he throws before folding up the map. Snorlax abruptly gurgles in his sleep, then returns to his usual dulcet sleeping tones. Blastoise scoffs, chin resting under his arms off the stream's edge he hangs off of.

Not far from Santalune City — depending on one's definition of far, anyway — rolls a stream to the northeast, where the land tilts upwards into hills. Those hills lead into a forest, and the forest offers an amount of privacy that Red decided would make do for camping out. Cheaper than a hotel, and even better, a time spent with his teammates beyond the cramped feeding times behind the building Green rents.

He might not have all his camping gear, but he's been with less before, in more dangerous terrains.

Blastoise cracks open an eye when Red places the Mega Stone between them. He keeps the smaller one for himself, letting it roll in his hand. "When we battled Green..." He starts, searching for Pikachu — but then remembers he isn't around, only Charizard meeting his gaze. The smaller pokémon left with Venusaur into the woods after dinner, the two deciding to nose around while it was still light enough to do so.

Charizard stares at him quietly with her chin to the ground, and he looks uselessly over to Snorlax, who isn't about to wake up to help with his story; so he starts over, coughing from his throat. "—His Alakazam evolved straight away, just like that. How hard can it be for us? Do you feel anything now?"

His usual perpetual smile frozen on his face, Blastoise look from the stone to his trainer and back, snorts hard enough to make the stone shudder, and then offers nothing else. Red's mouth pulls thin. Careful not to kick his bag, he lowers, trying to prop himself by an elbow, then rolling onto his stomach when it doesn't feel right. He takes the stone into his hand, holding the both of them close; running a thumb along a groove in the blastionite, blotting the centre-symbol out of his view.

"He called it a feeling. A way to battle." Red mutters between them, pieces of conversations he now can't quite recall in their entirety. What would Mega Evolution mean for them? What feeling? Green had been sweating just to keep it going, had said there might be the chance Red couldn't do it. Which Green would say about most things when they were younger, but this, Red knew was different.

If it was a struggle for Green, it wouldn't be easy for them. For once, Green wasn't exaggerating.

It didn't worry him. Red sets both stones down onto the patchy ground, fingers curling into each other, thinking; tempted to bop Blastoise on the nose with the Mega Stone, just to see if there was a reaction. But then, Blastoise scoffs. The waters sigh as he shifts to disturb them, chin lifting to flex his claws into the dirt. There's a glint in his eye as he stares directly at Red, ignoring the stones entirely.

A tingling runs down Red's spine, leading down into his hands. His fingers flex. 

"You didn't get to battle them." The fact sits on his tongue, a realisation without even thinking it. But the word, battle; saying it turns the tingling into shivers, the shivers into goosebumps over his skin.

"You're looking forward to it?"

The corners of Blastoise's mouth slowly pull back. Red's does the same. 

"Me too," he confesses eagerly, leaning in. "It ended too soon."

A low grunt comes from behind, and Red looks back. Charizard is lumbering their way, wings drooping with the rest of her body. She stops before Snorlax's feet, refusing to come any closer, but not so much to not — once falling back down, her head barely visible over the top of her wing — growl behind her mouth pointedly, staring with her usual sullen way.

Red's arms disagree with doing any sort of bending, but he picks himself upright, sitting on folded legs. "No one's getting left out," he tells her, rubbing off the dirt from his skin. "We'll start getting back into action tomorrow."

Because a one cut-short match wasn't enough, and it was easy to remember his restlessness now, how little they've really gotten to do in ages, and not know how much worse it has to be for his pokémon. Venusaur and Pikachu come back later with armfuls of berries on Pikachu's part—which counts to about three—and some balancing poorly on the inner sections of Venusaur's petals. The moment she stops to greet everyone, they come tumbling off.

When they wake the next morning, they find a trail leading them back to where they'd originally been plucked — much to the approval of Snorlax.

* * *

 

They meet after four days, nearly five: with four of those days spent battling trainers, wild pokémon, and even each other, and then the fifth on returning to Lumiose, getting lost, and no one being in the apartment anyway, once they found it. Because of course, that was his luck.

It's Green who finds him, hanging out in one of the nearby parks; and — because of course, as was his luck — in the process of climbing onto the back of Blastoise's shell, the pokémon half-submerged in a lake.

"This is where you're goofing off?"

Red whips his head around, spotting Green and some blue-haired girl. But Blastoise doesn't wait for him, pushing further into the lake.

He falls in. Blastoise doesn't pretend to be sorry by the time he bothers to swim back over.

* * *

 

"The President of Kalos rang me up to say you're the most embarrassing guy in the country."

The quip comes with a paper bag dumped on his stomach. It's an unwelcome weight where he's sprawled out on the couch, slightly warm, but the smell of something sweet coming from it gets him to sit up. The action is completely forgiven for what he finds inside: a still-warm panini, and a large raisin pastry. Pikachu pokes his nose from above, sniffing the air.

"Whah's the tihme?" Red asks into the first bite of his sandwich. Green frowns, sitting across from him on the chair.

"Nearly seven. Great time to show up again." He tears a piece of his own pastry. Pieces flake onto his lap. "You better have cleaned up the shower after you were finished with it."

"Yeeeeah, moooom," he drones. "I brought you some honey back, by the way."

Green looks at him inquisitively. "Honey?"

"They sell different types of it in Santalune." He shrugs indifferently. "Snorlax will eat it if you or your pokémon don't like it."

"...Thanks," Green says, if a little dubiously. Red hums in affirmation. They eat in silence for a while, until Green asks, "Do you still have your pokegear?"

Red looks up, blinking at him. "Did you call me?"

"Would you even know if I did?" The side of his mouth crooks. "Why didn't you call me first?"

"It's dead. I lost the charger ages ago." Red pauses. "Don't you have that new phone now?"

It takes Green a second to understand. "The holo-caster? That's just for people in Kalos." He then holds out a hand, motioning. "Grab it and I'll see if I can charge it for you."

Red looks to his unfinished sandwich, then leans comfortably into his seat.

"Later."

"Do it now and it'll be done by the morning!"

He huffs upon getting up, not seeing why it can't wait, but drags the worn phone device from deep inside his bag, sitting it onto the table for Green to take. Green's picked it up by the time he's taken his place again, Pikachu jumping down next to him. He studies at the device from the palm of his hand.

"Man, I knew it was going to be this..." There's a note of nostalgia in his voice, keeping when he asks, "Do you remember when you got this?"

—He does. Years ago, on a warm day just like the ones in Kalos, the streets half as busy outside Saffron's largest department store. Option after option hung from the walls and inside display counters back to back, with nothing but the price tags to give Red any real preference over what to get.

And then there was one pointed to him, finger tapping against the plastic case.

"You made me get it," Red answers. Green turns the pokégear over, probably looking for the port.

"A lot of good that turned out to be," he mutters under his breath. Red's mouth thins, a tug of guilt in his stomach.

"I used it," he insists. Maybe once, but still. "I kept it for emergencies," he adds.

"With a flat battery?" Green stares at him, and Red sinks back, feeling like a kid that's been caught out. Intent should've counted for something, but apparently not.

"You complain too much." He begins patting around at his side, searching for the bag with his pastry. "I called my mom at the pokécentres, so who else was I gonna—"

The bag sinks flat under the weight of his hand, and Red looks over: it's empty. And the reason why is huddled in the corner, ears pricked in alert. Slowly, Pikachu peeks out from the side, a piece of pastry torn in his mouth.

He darts the instant Red makes a grab for him, shouting, to the back of the couch and leaping for the coffee table, sending a magazine flying as he rockets for the bedroom from there. Leaving Red with a face-full of the couch, arm dangling off the side. "You traitor!"

By the time Red pushes himself back up, rubbing at the end of his nose, Green's stood up, hands shoved in his trouser pockets.

"Like trainer, like pokémon, huh? Make sure he doesn't leave any crumbs."

Red doesn't, deciding to wallow in his grievances on the couch instead — which ends up with the bedroom door locked after Green returns from the shower room, Pikachu kicked into the living room with him.

Whatever.

* * *

 

A locked door doesn't stop Red from turning the volume up on the TV. Around 7 o'clock, much to Green's displeasure, they leave for the institute.

The same woman greets them that had been there when they'd come with Sina, and the room they pick looks mostly identical to the one they'd used before. There's a screen and touchpad by the door that Red hadn't noticed in the last room, but he doesn't bother to ask as Green keys something up, letting him do his thing while he wanders over to a side of the room. There, he unhooks Blastoise's ball, rolling it against his palm as he waits.

_You ready?_ he thinks, feeling his heart rate already begin to slowly increase. If anyone gets too close, punch them in the face.

He stills the ball as it suddenly rocks, a laugh wanting to bubble up his throat. He smiles instead. Green calls out to him — "You awake over there?" — and he lifts his head, seeing from the other side Green now standing, a hand on his hip.

And in his other, a pokéball. Green throws it to the ground, letting his gyarados come spiralling out and blanketing shadow across half of the room, nearly spilling over Red. Gyarados, huh? "There's no easy way to explain this, so don't ask me to clarify anything," Green starts, while Gyarados stares him down, jaw hanging open. "But the thing that makes your pokémon Mega Evolve is that feeling you both share in a battle. You know the one I mean." He points a finger at Red, a smiling creeping on his face. "That feeling's the wavelength that'll activate your stones, and evolve Blastoise.

"So." Spreading his fingers, he waves his hand playfully, his smile now a full-blown smirk across his face. "We're going to help you both get it by beating the shit out of you. No questions?" There's no pause, no waiting for a response; in one last motion, Green folds his arms. "Good."

Now, Red almost does want to laugh, to call Green an asshole, as unreasonable as it is this one time; and it's all because of the growing fever in his body, the desire for a fight now somehow tenfold now inside him. He does neither of these things, letting out Blastoise with a swing of his arm, the cannons on his back adjusting in a taunting manner to the gyarados towering over him from above. Red can't see them, but he can feel it: his opened mouth, fangs showing, the clenching of his claws and the building on pressure inside his shell.

"Is that how you taught your trainers back in Viridian? Thanks, teacher."

Green just scoffs, and gives a jerk of his head. Gyarados's mouth pulls further back as a low growl rumbles out.

"Waterfall!"

The growling turns into a full-out roar, and Gyarados barrels headfirst for Blastoise. Blastoise meets him with his spouts pointed at the incoming face, sending jet blasts of waters that kicks Gyarados's aim to the side, but still clips into Blastoise, knocking his shoulder. Red keeps an arm in front of his head, ricocheted water collecting on his skin, witnessing as Gyarados thrashes his head into his blastoise with enough force to get him to stumble, throwing a gush of water off-contact and across the distant field.

Gyarados doesn't relent. When the call for a Return comes as Red gives one for a Flash Cannon, Gyarados smashes into Blastoise, again and again; managing to disrupt the cannons from building more than a shine from within, but not enough to get him to fall over, meeting one of the knocks with a punch to the jaw that reels Gyarados back some.

They have an opening— "Now!"

Blastoise hunches for the aim, and the pressure already gathered inside the cannons shoot in blinding beams. Gyarados wails upon impact, reeling back farther than before, its eyes screwed tightly shut and head flailing around. Green wouldn't allow them to use it to their advantage; Red knew that, and it was easy to forget about the stones entirely, the underlying reason for this match in the first place. The next attack was already sitting on the end of his tongue, ready.

But there's a beat, like that from a heart — and it aligns with the pulsing in his hand, snatching his attention from the battle to it. Clenched, the small stone in its centre. When did he take it from his pocket? When did it begin to glow — but they're questions that exist only in a second, gone as his gaze returns to Blastoise. His shell shimmers, his limbs, and that white power, the sucking air all begins to escalate around him—

The slam of Gyarados's tail sends blasts of shockwaves towards them, but the impact of Blastoise's foot slamming down dulls the ones that come to reach him and Red, an almighty roar following. The weight is no longer on his tongue, but in his entire being, resonating, he knows, in Blastoise too. His feet part and his shoulders arch, his fists clenching even tighter, the pulsing inside him growing louder, louder.

Blastoise lets off the shot that's been waiting inside his cannon all this time, and the sound breaks through the pounding already between his ears.

_ Gyarados falls. Knocked out. _

_ Green recalls. Now. Who's next. _

 

_ Blastoise wants more. This power. _

 

_ More. _

 

_ They both want more. _

 

**_Who's next._ **

  
  


* * *

 

It comes to Red suddenly, t hen gradually: that he's been sitting there for the last two minutes, the noise coming out of Green's mouth not a blur, not an echoing between his ears, but actual words.

Green, kneeling there beside him, looking back from what— _ who _ —he realises to be Pidgeot.

"You finally with us? Count to ten for me."

One, two three— it's surprisingly difficult to get through, but he gets all the way, only realising at that point all the vigour just in him now gone. It'd only felt like second ago, but — no, it was longer ago than that. He looks at a hand, held out with a bottle of water in its hold. Was it his?

"Drink it." Green nods to it, then sits back, his arm falling over his knee. "Just take it easy. I've told Blastoise to rest." 

At his name, Red searches for the pokémon, spotting him easily. He was just a shell, his limbs and head tucked away.

"Is he alright?" The question takes a moment to leave his mouth.

"He's fine," Green answers. "You're both just unused to the power flow."

It takes him a moment again: digest Green's response, and then to speak. "What happened?"

"You got him to Mega Evolve. Knocked out Gyarados in one hit, and I sent out Pidgeot — but the next thing I knew, Blastoise was just glowing." He pauses. "What's the last thing you remember?"

"I remember... Blastoise attacking."

Green nods. He then smirks, tipping his head at an angle. "He looked pretty cool out there, huh? He used that new cannon of his right away."

New cannon. Red thinks back to the scene, his gaze down on his legs, the bottle of drink still in his hand. Blastoise's posture, the power as it built up inside his shell, as it released.

He stretches his fingers, then brings them into pairs, except for his thumb. Staring at them, trying to rekindle them with the memory of the claws he'd— felt? Imagined?

"I didn't see him change," he says. Green looks at him.

"What?"

"I saw it starting, but — I didn't see anything. I just... knew."

Knew? Felt? Was? He wasn't sure now what he knew, continuing to stare at his hand, racking his mind for some better sense of what'd happened. He catches Green sighing after a while.

"It's your first time — you're still out of it. I was the same way the first time me and Alakazam did it: dizzy, restless. Alakazam cut us off before it got too bad." Green's back reclines, his hands weaving together. "But getting to achieve that... I've felt I've gotten to understand him more, you know? I got to see things the way he does. Getting to experience that each time, it's..."

For once, the smile on Green's face isn't boastful, but something else, entirely: softer, honest. But he doesn't allow it to last as he cuts himself off, blinking, looking at Red and then turning away, embarrassment twisting his features. Quickly, he unhooks his hands to stand onto his feet, backing away.

"Anyway. You wanna get out of here? We can head to the pokémon centre and come back another time."

Pidgeot turns to his trainer, and Green shakes his head, putting a hand to rest on the top of its head. Red watches the pair of them, silently. His lips part, moving to speak, but hesitating. 

"Let's stay," he finally says. Green looks back. "There isn't any point in leaving, unless you want to feed me. You can do that after, once I beat you some more."

Green stands paused, but then it passes, along with the mood between them, his usual smirk returning. "Are you sure you can handle it? I don't want an easy time beating you because you're out of it."

"You're not going to beat me." He's with it enough to sound a touch more casual than necessary, at least. He nods to Pidgeot. "Did you bring the stone for him with you?"

"The mega stone? Yeah."

"Then save him for last." Laying a palm flat against the ground, Red stands, slowly and carefully, mindful of his balance. His vision wavers slightly, but not enough to stop him from getting onto his feet. He inhales a breath, letting it rattle out as he adjusts his wristbands.

"I want to get through more than one or two pokémon before we stop again. I'm getting restless." The corners of his mouth curl upwards. "Aren't you?"

Green laughs, looking brighter than ever, throwing out a hand. "Hey, like I said -- I'm here to kick your ass today. I'm just waiting on you."

"Sure, sure. Let's go, then."

When he finally evolves, Pidgeot towers over them more impressive than any skyscraper, shredding Venusaur's leaf storm into a tepid silence with a single powerful beat of his wings.

It's breathtaking. But what stays with Red is the pride in Green's eyes, before and after. He never stops smiling, and it's infectious.

Pikachu's ball shakes excitedly. Touching it, Red hums in agreement.

* * *

 

Charizard and Machamp are a sight carrying food bags slung over their shoulders through Mélancolie Path, passing the late evening fishers with their rods propped up, the sun painting the wild flora with an autumn shade. But to Red, this was a hell lot of a better sight than another day crowding around the back of the apartment complex.

They take up a spot on the end of the lake away from the paths from the city and zig-zagging over the water. The two pokémon deal with the bags of mix while Red and Green release the rest of their teams. Machamp gives a bag the lightest tug he can -- and it splits down the sides, spilling when he lets it go. His is a sight to Red when flushed, but Green just shakes his head at his embarrassment. "It's no big deal," he says, and directs Alakazam takes over.

With his telekinesis, he slices openings into the bags with ease, and then proportions them as necessary. They have to walk to the lake's edge to deliver the water pokémon's share, and when they return, Arcanine and Pikachu are scampering away from the torn bag, mouths full. 

"Did those two just grab more?" Green points accusingly. The pair are the least of their troubles when they spot Snorlax thinking he can do the same. He whines profusely when refused his idea of modest a second (third, fourth, fifth) helpings — despite his already larger first.

It's as messy an affair as one can suspect when dealing with twelve pokémon, but they make the best out of it. Red and Green decide to fall back from the mess of leftover pokémix and their teams, climbing some of the steep hill that overlooks the lake and their pokémon below. Letting everyone, for the time, do what they want.

Nothing out of the ordinary happens for a while. The pokémon eat, heads bobbing to their next door neighbours or to munch away, the same as it usually is. But then Pikachu — always the first one to finish — hops over to Arcanine, his ears leaned back. He hangs around her, doing what, Red can't tell — until he goes bounding off without warning along the slope of the hill. He pauses once to look back to the pokémon, his ears now pricked, before continuing to sprint on all fours.

Arcanine hesitates briefly, but then follows after him; quickly, easily, and the two begin racing, disturbing foongus from the tall grass and sending murkrow flying into trees, one dropping a ring of keys from its talons.

Out of everyone inspired into action next, it's Snorlax. Rather than rolling onto his back as per usual, he stands onto round paws, looking around inquisitively. He must spot a figure of interest then, slapping a chubby fist into his palm, and then making his way over on thumping steps to — Green's Rhyperior.

They stand in the company of Machamp and Pidgeot, who all turn to Snorlax with a curiosity bordering on wary. Snorlax grunts roughly; they look at one another other, at Rhyperior. Rhyperior takes a heavy step in front of Snorlax, shadowing — even with Snorlax being half a foot taller than the average of his kind — the thick pokémon with her own incredible mass.

Which had been part of the reason Red had sent out Snorlax against Rhyperior earlier that day, might be why he challenged her now. And why she might've accepted, with Snorlax wasting no time grabbing at her protruding horn, shoving a paw under an arm, looking to raise her mass under his strength, she in turning seizing at him. Her team mates had already backed off to give them space, but they watched, with others coming to do the same, Venusaur and Machamp both cheering the loudest.

"Well," Green says. "That's one way to pass the time."

Red grunts, not tearing his eyes away. It'd been too easy to inhale his food, so the distraction from his stomach — which included Rhyperior delivering a punch straight to Snorlax's face -- was appreciated. It was either that, or he could just as easily recline and fall asleep. Whatever burst of energy had found Snorlax, it hadn't made its way to him.

And it was becoming more and more a tempting idea. But it didn't matter, when a " _ Here _ " was said beside him, and some kind of block bumped against his chest. Red takes it instinctively, then actually looks at it, narrow-eyed: it was his pokégear.

"You're welcome," Green says. "You're lucky it charges just like mine does. Some of the older models used to be a pain for that, and considering how old yours is, I was expecting more trouble."

Red thumbs along the ridge where it'd be easy to flip open, but decides again it, and goes for his original idea of reclining. The grass is cold under his back; more relaxing than any springy bed or padded sofa. He touches at the strands under his fingers, making loops that tickle along his palm each time they catch.

And then he catches skin, the bump of a knuckle and bone under soft flesh, before Green takes his hand away. Red peels back an eye to see Green making a funny face at him, but they say nothing about it.

Instead: "Why don't we sleep out here for the night?"

"How about we don't?"

"Bore." The ground lightly rumbles as a heavy thud rings out. It could be either Snorlax or Rhyperior. "Have you camped out since coming here?"

"I— yeah. The reason I took the course I'm on now is so I could move around, if that's what you're thinking. But there's things called hotels around, and I like them. When you plan a few things out in life, it's amazing what you can get out of it," Green adds equivocally. Red just snorts at first; but when he remembers Shalour, the sour taste settles in his gums.

"Things work out," he says, a little too late. Green laughs.

"Yeah, well, that's fine if you like living like that. But me... I've always had things I've wanted to do. Things that mean sticking around people for more than a couple of days at a time." Green pauses, and then: "You ever think about that?"

Red opens his eyes, tilting his head. Dusk was looming, the sun out of their vision,but the crisp sky still makes his eyes wince in the places where Green doesn't blot it out.

"You used to be happy playing Mario in your bedroom if I didn't come over and kick you out. Now you're gone without a word for years, like a bonafide mountain man." A smirk. "Save the beard and  pot belly. For now."

Red huffs through his nostrils. "You're just jealous you don't have the stamina for it like me."

"I have stamina where it counts," Green grins, a flash of teeth at the corners. "Would you even know anything about that?"

His brow furrows, and when he says back, "About what?", Green's lift with a surprise that puzzles Red further. "What?"

"Red," Green starts, voice hitched between humour and something else. But then, he doesn't go on. Instead, Green's examining him: eyes trailing down along his body, the look in them unrecognisable, and somehow—daunting. Red tenses under the gaze, beneath that thoughtful parting in Green's lips. He nearly speaks—

"Nothing." —but Green gets there first. His mouth is closed, a thin-lipped smile spread across them, looking at him directly, eye to eye. It's not comforting; it's the same look Green would get whenever he knew something he thought Red didn't when they were kids. And usually, he was right.

Red slaps the back of his hand against Green's leg, turning away, exhaling a tired breath. "What's Kalosian for idiot?" he grumbles.

"Same as Kantonian: Red."

"Dick."

"Heh."

When they finally get ready to head back, Snorlax is snoring peacefully despite the blood and dirt tattered in his fur, everyone — even the water-types, with most of Gyarados's body coiled far back -- in a circle and chattering away, including Arcanine and Pikachu. They send everyone but Charizard and Pidgeot into their balls, who carry them and the remains of the food in their claws as they fly into the city, dropping down at the end of the road leading to Green's apartment.

Red rummages through the cupboards for food while Green channel surfs. He finds a documentary about pokémon habitats around the islands of Hoenn, the voiceover provided by a renowned professor in the area, and Red settles with a bag of popcorn between them. Kalosian subtitles flicker across the bottom, which doesn't stop Red from asking "What did he just say?" around mouthfuls. Green bumps his knee harshly in response each time. 

It's interesting, yet after a while, they end up talking in the spaces of the professor's earnest lecture. The screen pans over mountainous terrain that show aggron working together to restore paths destroyed by landslides, of crawdaunt and whiscash clashing over territory. They talk about the sights they've seen, of the moving forests of torterra in Sinnoh, pokémon the size of one's finger in Unova. Green doesn't believe that until Red shows him his pokédex, which all by itself earns Green's disbelief at the old-casing, compared to his more sleek and up to date one.

They get through the entire bag of popcorn, a packet of cookies, and a cup of tea each, and Red doesn't even notice the voices are speaking again in Kalosian until Green stands, arching his back.

"Alright, it's seriously getting late." He lets go of the held breath and posture, sighing contentedly. "You gonna stay up?"

Red hums a little, trying to seem distracted with his focus on the TV screen. His lips roll together; then, as casually as he can, he says, "I'll join you soon."

He tells himself not to look. But he can't help himself, and snatches a view of the glare Green is boring into him, the frown close to becoming a permanent fixture on his face. He then huffs loudly, turning on his heel as he waves a hand. "Whatever, do what you want."

Pulling the bedroom door to, Green disappears inside—and it never shuts. Red waits for something more, for a click, for something he doesn't even know; because it's easier to believe than to think that actually worked. But the seconds tick by, and nothing more comes.

He wonders if he should.

Quietly, carefully, Red slips into the room by only a crack, leaving nothing but a small table lamp on in the other room, just in case. It's silent and dark; Green is already under the covers, his back to the door. He doesn't say a word as Red closes it behind him with a soft click, or as the bed dips beneath his weight, as he turns to face away, covering the blanket over his shoulder.

His heart beats with a strange giddiness he can't pinpoint. It's distracting, the loudest sound in the room, but he falls asleep despite it; remembering, for some strange reason, a time long ago when the two of them were kids — sleeping like brothers on the same hotel bed.


	5. Chapter 5

In the dark of the night, Red watches Green's back under the cracks of his tired eyelids.

He's nothing but a lump beside him, near indistinguishable from anything else, except for the wild mess of ginger hair poking out from the blanket. It's the single piece of colour Red’s eyes can discern; it's all he _can_ discern, too dark to even see Green's body rise and fall to the rhythm of his breathing. They're close enough to touch, but Red can't hear the light telltale signs of life that should be there. The raining that brought them together is still drumming like a thousand fingers tapping at the windowpane, leaving just the low inhales and exhales of his own breathing in his ears.

But Green is there beside him, like he might've been when they were younger — before they turned eleven and discovered the world.

His eyes are asking for sleep. But, a little longer; he just wants a little while more. Tonight, he wants to remember how they used to be.

Because he knows by tomorrow, the moment will be gone.

* * *

  
Green plants a folded piece of paper into his hand the next morning, speaking over the rim of his coffee cup. "Those should help you get around. Repeat some back to me."

Unfolding it with a raised brow, the paper reveals a list of words and phrases written in Kalosian, their meaning in Kantonian beside them and the pronunciations jotted beneath by each syllable. Red picks a word at random, then a short sentence, each one coming back with Green's accented corrections. He tuts after that, half-shrugging. "Your pronunciation sucks, but it'll do."

Red sits the paper down on the coffee table, picking his tea up into his hands for a sip.

They've decided to sort out a plan, as much as they can have one. Green's course allows him the freedom to pick and choose when and where he does most of his work as long as he has an internet connection, but it still means submitting the work on deadlines, and being enrolled in the university gives him access to seminars and workshops he wouldn't be able to attend if spent too long outside the city. "Basically, if you're going out there and prancing around with the eevees, you're better coming back on the Sundays to train with me."

 _There's eevees?_ Red nearly asks, but skips to his second question: "What about Saturdays?"

"I wanna have some fun while I'm here." Red frowns at that, which Green returns. "What? Look-" he waves a hand. "Just call me, alright? It's easier."

So that sorts that.

Green spends the next half-hour going over the different cities and landmarks inbetween, forcing Red to lay out his map across the table when he admits to already having one. He doesn't care about the proper way to say any of the names, and every time Green jabs his finger to some city or road, Red finds his gaze easily returning to Green's face, his mouth working incessantly, eyes narrowing at times on either side of that slender nose. His hair is fluffier in the mornings too, he notes. But it's not what has his attention.

"Do you do this with other people?" Red interrupts, just as Green's saying something or another about _“aires”_ along the eastern routes. Green lifts his head.

"Do what?"

Red thinks, and tips his head to the map. "Plan trips.”

"Sure, sometimes," Green replies. "Mostly for some event or fieldwork. But we already know where we want to go and what's around, so it's not as much of a pain."

It doesn't settle the question Red has in him, but it's no surprise—he doesn't know how to ask it, or what exactly it is. So he just nods, pretending to drain more than a slither of tea from his cup so Green will continue with whatever he wants. He does so by asking Red if he has an idea now of what he plans to do, and he pretends to think about it for a good five seconds before he shrugs, and asks Green if wants to train again.

The look Green gives him is suspicious — but he agrees.

 

* * *

 

Despite the hour head start in mega evolving first the day before, Pidgeot and Green successfully manage it first in that session. Red and Blastoise get it moments after, encouraged by the display, and then Red promptly collapses with the third attack, his vision going blank. 

Green is there at his side again when he comes to. White dots fizzle around the edges of his sight, fading as he counts, his voice becoming audible in time. Blastoise is hunched behind him, allowing Red's back to rest against his shell; he doesn't know when he got there, but he's happy to have him close. His own body feels like elastic and electricity this time: exhausted, yet eager for more.

"You're trying to send too much energy Blastoise's way — that's my guess, anyway," Green says, his voice cool and direct. He pries from Red's hand his stone, a shimmer of light dying from its core. "But the way Blastoise attacks when he transforms and how you work together, it's not going to be a problem with your relationship." He pauses, and then says, "We'll have to do this differently."

Red spots Pidgeot a short distance away as he listens, who stands still changed, confident, looming over all of them with his new height. "You've got to learn to evolve him together outside a battle, and then keep it up,” Green continues. “Once you're comfortable with it, then we'll try battling. Until then, it's pretty much useless. You're not going to get better if you're fainting over and over."

It's a theory, but reasonable, Red will give him. It's interesting too; not just because of the idea itself, but the way Green delivers it: straight-forward in presentation, the thoughtful expression he wears, not covered over by a quick show of confidence, a smarmy hand-wave and a joke at Red's expense.

Was he like this at the gym? Red finds himself thinking, almost fondly. It would be easy to tease him over, but he holds his tongue, craning his neck instead to a view of Blastoise's chin above him.

"Think we can do it?"

Blastoise meets his eye, and the corners of his mouth lift into gaping circles of a grin, teeth barely seen.

Scoffing lightly, Red smiles back.

Red refuses to stop battling there, his reflexes slow despite the five minutes allowed before they resume battling, but his team manage to keep Green on his toes regardless. Green still whittles him down to three pokémon, two available on his own, before Red has to call it quits.

Green pats him fondly on the shoulder as he drapes over a railing outside the pokécentre, his shirt clinging to his skin, a cold chill over his skin, the water below tempting to take a dip in anyway.

"Alright, I think we have to put a ban on you battling after you knock yourself out. If I'm about to beat you, I want to see it through, you know?"

He's so obnoxiously chipper, but Red doesn't have the energy to bat him away. Imagining _him_ taking a dip in the river though — that costs no energy.

"—Ah, Green, bonjour! Have you been training?"

"Wha— hey! What are you doing here?"

Red blinks, his brow furrowing: that hadn't all been in Kalosian. He doesn't see anything but the cream back of Green's jacket from where he angles his head, so he picks himself up, pushing out from the steel bars to peer around the side of Green.

It's a girl, and one he realises he's seen before. She catches his eye from the other side, hers the colour of the sea, the curls of her hair pointing to her jaw bobbing when she bows her head politely.

"Red, right? It's nice to meet you. My name is Kris."

 

* * *

 

She's studying pokémon support and care full time at the university.

"I live in the same town as an expert on pokémon breeding and evolution, which I guess helped me get here—working as an intern, I mean," she hurries to clarify, flushing. "But there's still a lot we don't know, so that's why I came out here. I met Green back in Pallet Town, actually, when I was visiting his grandfather."

Her gesture to Green is small and quick before she slips her hand back around the latte glass. Green had been the one to suggest they get drinks, and Kris had led them from there to a small coffee shop nearby she liked to frequent, sitting them outside a mocha-coloured overhang. She looks around the same age as them to Red, but despite the polite smile that verges on modest, the way she holds herself makes her seem older.

Especially the straight posture she appears to keep so effortlessly, Red's own back unable to mimic.

"She was off doing errands for gramps before he dragged Lyra into it," Green continues for her. "Even befriended a legendary before the kid, too. Hey, you remember Kris, don't you?" He leans on an elbow, grinning at Red. "After you decided to take a dip with Blastoise into the lake?"

Red shoots him a glare. Kris chuckles, but not at him. "It's fine," she says, tucking her hair behind an ear. Her flower-shaped earring catches in the sunlight and the corner of his eye. "I've heard a lot of things about you too, of course," she moves on, and Red readies himself for the usual subject that follows those words.

"You really saw the legendary birds of Kanto?"

It doesn't come. Green scoffs audibly, but the fascination in Kris's gaze doesn't diminish, or leave. Red nods slowly under its weight, not knowing how else to answer. No one's ever asked.

She isn't deterred. Her fingers knit as she leans her arms against the side of the table, all attention on him. "What were they like? Can you tell me?"

 _Amazing,_ he thinks in an instant, the word on his bottom lip, on his tongue—but it doesn't even begin to describe their place in his memories, eleven years old and being judged by creatures ten times that. He presses his fingers against his cup, staring at the whipped cream covering his hot chocolate.

"You've met a legendary?" He tries, eyelids flickering back up. She nods. "Have you met anything like them?"

"No," she answers, and her voice is laced with understanding, even before he nods.

"It's like that."

Kris smiles, and it’s comforting to see. Knowing. Thinking, Red decides to ask, "Who were the pokémon you saw?"

"Do you know about the legend of Ho-Oh, and the three beasts of Entei?" Red shakes his head. "Ho-Oh and Lugia, two legendary bird pokémon of the skies and the seas, used to reside in Ecruteak city in Johto when the lands were said to be at peace. But a brewing conflict caused an argument between the two pokémon, leaving the skies in disarray as Lugia left. Ho-Oh's anguished cry was heard before thunder struck Lugia's tower, engulfing it in flames. They say it was a warning of the times to come."

A distant laugh sounds at Red's back; it doesn't stir his attention away, or Kris's. "The people of Ecruteak came together to put it out, and despaired when they saw the wreckage that was left behind. Ho-Oh, who was still nearby, returned to give life to the pokémon that died. Those pokémon were Entei, Suicune, and Raikou. To make a long story short," she says, a smile pinching into her features, "those were the pokémon I met. I became close with Suicune. Back then... it recognised me. It wanted to see the world through me. When I was ready..."

She gazes absently to the sky, the crescents of her nails rimmed around the glass, until something brings her out of her reverie. "Oh, well." A laugh, and she leans away from the table. "We stayed close for a while, but it didn't feel right, making them stay with me. So we parted. That was a while back."

Red stays silent for a moment, before carefully, he says deliberately, "They wouldn't have stayed if they didn't want to."

Kris holds his gaze unwavering, then says, "I know" in the same deliberate tone as he did.

—It's like that.

"Do you know about the legends of this region?" she asks, as a means to move on with the conversation. Red shakes his head, and so she tells him happily, with the same effort she gave the story before. Green sits without saying a word, Red nearly forgetting his presence until Kris, after flicking a wrist to check her watch and then startling at the time, rises to her feet, explaining about a group meeting she needs to head to on the other side of town.

"I'll see you around?" she asks Red, paused in her steps but ready to leave. Red gives her a nod, and she smiles a little brighter, then waves at them both before dashing off.

Green's frowning when Red looks at him, an odd crook to it, his hands shoved deep into his pockets. Red waits, then speaks when he doesn't. "What?"

"Nothing." It sounds far from nothing, but Green's already turned on his heel. "Let's go."

Red stares at the leaving back, tongue clenched in his mouth and brow knitted tight — and follows without asking a second time.

They don't have anywhere to go as far as Red knows, so they roam the small streets aimlessly without a word, coming out towards a busier road circling a park Red's never seen before. His tongue searches out the sweet spots left in his mouth, thinking back to Kris's story. Lyra had shared with him about Ho-Oh and Lugia, shared _them_ with him, but finding people who had more than fleeting experiences with legendaries and with tales to share were incredibly low.

Maybe he shouldn't have been so hesitant to talk about them, himself. He could've told her about—

"You think you actually want to see her again?"

Green brings Red out of his thoughts, both of them crossed on the other side. Red gives the question a shrug out of habit, but says sure more optimistically — it'd be interesting to hear what else she knew. Green says nothing, but his pace slows before they move far from the crossing, and then comes to a stop by a lamp post.

"You should check in with Sycamore sometime and tell him what's been going on," he suggests, folding his arms. "And if you need anything, you should tell me now. You didn't exactly share your thoughts about what you're gonna do when I asked."

Red didn't have any then; and admittedly, he isn't sure now, either. He shifts on his feet, trying to think.

"I can go see Sycamore and leave," he figures; where he would go could come a little later. There wasn't anything actually stopping him, and other than a supply check, there wasn't anything else immediately important in the city. He could see somewhere new. Go to Shalour, whether he visited the tower or not.

"You don't have to hang around," he adds. Green's shoulders pinch instantly.

"If you don't remember, your stuff's at my place, so I don't have a _choice_ ," he retorts. His stance is sharper than Red's words had intended to make it — which was, not at all — but loosens the next second when Green sighs. "Sure, fine. I've got some things I want to get anyway, so just head to the apartment whenever. I should be there by the time you're done."

So that sorts that.

Green doesn't have much to say when Red turns up to the apartment. He answers when Red speaks, saying _go ahead_ to taking food of the human and pokémon varieties, but seems content to tap away at his laptop, even as Red closes the door to leave, without a question of where he's going.

It was unusual, but then, it wasn’t anything out of place, really: stepping in and out of each other's lives was what they did.

 

* * *

 

Shalour ends up the chosen destination. Going off the map, there were routes leading there from the west, one which would take him farther south before it led him towards the city and the other northwest, towards Coumarine. Coumarine would be the quickest route, but the most expensive if he went by train again, or lead him to spending the night in the badlands if he went by foot. The idea of travelling through dry heat is off-putting, but so is going the long way around because of some mountains.

But then he realises _mountains?_ , and thinks: _oh._

Why bother with anything else?

All is silent when Charizard lands them on rocky terrain, but silence isn't a promise for peace, and so they travel with caution. There's no manmade path, the ground littered with rubble of stone along a steep slope for miles, but it's doable, manageable. Red keeps out Charizard to their backs, and brings Blastoise to join them at the front. Sycamore had agreed with Green's theory and potential solution before they left; it might be difficult, but if they could learn to carry an evolution outside of battle for periods of time, it may help with Red's issues in handling it.

So: spend time together, and work out the details as they go along. It was practically the way they lived.

The route leads into a mountain wall that crumbles into a long descent, jagged rocks and sections of crystal creating a staircase (if you squint) to climb down with. Charizard skips the climb down with a daring hop supported by pinched-in wings, and Red balances himself with hands extended out on the passageway, catching every now and on the glass-like surface of crystal smoothed by the elements.

There's so much of it, jutting even from the ground as they get further in, coaxing sableye out from dark holes littered throughout, despite their usual preference for deeper dwellings. Most scarper at their approach, but others, with their sharp teeth already dug around protruding stone, hiss at being disturbed. Charizard snaps her jaws and growls where she can, and Blastoise sends warning shots by their food, but a battle is left to the temperment of the pokémon than them.

Dusk is waiting for them by the time they finally find a decent-sized clearing to settle for the night, nothing but a skyline of mountain peaks to greet them. Red sighs, squeezing his toes inside his shoes as his head tips back, glitters of the early stars above their heads.

"Least the view is rocking, huh?"

Blastoise snorts. Charizard brushes away stone and other mess to reveal the smooth ground underneath, and they all chip in to getting camp set up for the night. Dinner comes after, and then a dessert of fresh apples sliced by hand, out of years of habit.

“A lot better than Green’s dumb backyard,” he remarks smugly, popping pieces of the apple in his mouth while Blastoise for the second time wanders a claw too close to Charizard’s pile. And then a third, and then a fourth; and that’s the time that gets jaws snapping inches from where his head would be, but it shrinks, disappearing out of sight inside his shell.

When it reappears, all the slices of apple have gone—even his.

Red just shrugs, “I’unno,” as Charizard swallows down the lump in her mouth, along with Blastoise’s games and reason to smirk.

 

* * *

 

Before they leave the site the next day, Red and Blastoise agree to try Mega Evolution. _Without_ battling.

It’s about as exciting as it sounds.

They sit, since there’s supposed to be no doing anything that might be _thrilling_ , and it passes in a slow, predictable waste of time. Blastoise pretends to snore once or twice, peeking obnoxiously out of the  corner of his eye and staring at Red until he finally smacks him uselessly on his shell.

“You’re not _helping_ ,” he scolds, rubbing his stinging knuckles. But Blastoise just scoffs, and that’s about as much of a response he deserves, admittedly.

Because Red can’t blame him. What was he or anyone expecting this to be? The process of achieving something by doing nothing is as productive as it sounds, and Red finds it useless, no spark or inspiration creeping into him, no matter how tight he holds the key stone in his grasp.

What’s more entertaining is to think about what could be: if they were amidst a fight, against Green or some wild pokémon. _Anything._ The ground could open up beneath them to a raging onix, no, a _steelix,_ and no, not just one but _five;_ and then the scrambling into battle that meant either life or death they’d be dragged into, and _oh,_ Red would love that right about now.

It’s through that thought that something familiar — like a line, a thread, living inside his chest and mind, invisible but defined — becomes taut. And Blastoise, without any motion or movement, _agrees_ , of steelix fifty time their height, flying dragon-type beasts from Unova, and _how_ to deal with an all-out war on their hands.

All of this shared silently, without a word or noise spared.

Red begins to feel it then: a familiar rising sensation filling his body, intangible and emotional. Yet he has that line, a heat in his palm, and he reaches inside himself and someone else until it tangles together and becomes defined, going deeper and deeper until he believes for certain that there’s anything there to be _held;_ and when he does, he sees the white light behind shut-tight eyelids, a power surging from inside him and out.

It clears. And when it does, Blastoise stands with a thick cannon extended above his head, two readied around his wrists, his evolution on full display.

His eyes widen fully, and then try to more. There’s a rattling in his chest like fireworks shooting off, and the line responds, tightens and thickens, as a pride not his own comes through — but oh, is it soon. His body turns giddy, his ability to stand on his own two feet a slow, possibly bad mistake to even attempt, but he keeps up, somehow, never letting Blastoise out of his sight.

Blastoise, _his_ Blastoise; this is what he looks like. He takes a step, a stumble, and lands into arms ready to catch him, but Red doesn’t care for the fall. He just laughs, voice shaking as he wraps his own arms around the pokémon, as tight as he can get them.

 

* * *

 

When Red thinks about it — and the route they’ve taken gives him time to do so — he recognises the connection between himself and Blastoise. It's one they’ve shared since they’ve known each other, but now with an extra layer to it, a new use he never expected. A link that all trainers and their pokémon share, making you aware of one another, of what the other is experiencing, and feeling.

Your concern, your direction, your belief in them — turning love into power.

The relationship between him and Blastoise was never complicated. Venusaur and Pikachu were willing and trusting, whereas Charizard was guarded, hurt before by a previous trainer too impatient to look through past her defenses; Snorlax had a stubborn streak that still came out at times, and Lapras was quiet, but critical in her judgments, despite her kind features.

Blastoise liked to fight, and their working partnership became stronger in the most intense of battles, as their wins grew and grew. It was the first thing Red understood that they shared: an insatiable thirst for battling, for the rush that came with it. Battling was where the pokémon came alive — and where Red did as well.

It shouldn't be surprising then, the reason for the head rushes that slow him down. The possibility of a fight; whether he thinks it or Blastoise does, the reaction is the same: a wave rolling in, lapping around inside of him. Encouraging him, enticing; what if they tested this power, this ability? There'll be opportunities; there's always pokémon around looking for a fight or a meal. The golem are plentiful in the mountains, always, along with their previous evolutions. A fight will be easy to find. What are we waiting for?

An opportunity arrives when they see two gravelers ascending from the cliff side, bumbling on oblivious to them. The implication to Blastoise is simple; but for Red, it knocks into him like a tidal wave, all that want, that _glee_. He stumbles back into Charizard’s belly, losing grip of the invisible line he was carrying.

And just like that, the evolution ends, shattering into nothing but white particles. The noise and light of it attracts the graveler's attention, dumbfounded expressions turning into howling screams, and then they're reaching for large rocks to raise above their heads.

They think they're being targeted, and are responding in kind.

Red unfortunately can't appreciate the irony of it in that moment. Their movements are luckily slow, but Red's are slower, panic too defined an emotion to feel as he fumbles a hand downwards, trying to grab for a ball his fingers don't know how to find. Charizard lowers him in his half-standing position, and he manages not to fall on his back, leaning to a side as he sees, his vision dancing and refusing to focus, as she swoops to the front of Blastoise. Her wings spread and glow, and she thrusts herself from side to side, her wings swinging, sending discs of air slash at the pokémon.

The boulders in their hold crack some under the force, the pokémon flinching briefly, but not enough where they don't recover, and send the stones flying at Charizard and barrelling into the back of a wing, the exposed side of a stomach, knocking her over with a pained cry.

 _Lapras, lapras, lapras_ — He touches metal, the ends of his fingers wrapping around a ball; whose, he can’t know, but it pulls it off and into his unsteady hold. One graveler is already thundering forward, another reaching for a section of stone jutting out from the mountain wall, splintering it into pieces it throws this way and that. Red can see Charizard begin to pick herself up onto her fists, growling at the approaching stony pokémon. It smacks a foot down, sending up stone etched out of the ground and hovering mid-air, and then at Charizard, at them; her head waves in his vision at the attack, and he feels something sharp cut into the side of his arm.

—then water barrages overhead, sending the graveler plummeting into the one into the back, dousing them thereafter in a bath that renders them still when it stops.

Droplets trail Red's cheek. Blastoise's footsteps are the only sound, his figure hanging above him with a silent question. Red shakes his head, nods to Charizard — and Blastoise moves on without a word, going to where she's sprawled out, her snout lifting her head off the ground.

Blastoise lowers silently, extending an arm. He keeps it out, waiting patiently until Charizard finds the energy to raise herself to the point where she can grab it, and hoist into a sitting position off her other wing, letting them drape behind her. He huffs; no smile upon his face, and firm in deliverance. She gives a huff back, short and acknowledged.

The gravelers don't stir as Red tends to Charizard's wounds, to his own — and the mood doesn't shift for a while, an agreement made between him and Blastoise in the same look that composes the decision.

They won't allow that to happen again.

 

* * *

 

The agreement, or event, becomes an anchor they need, a means of steadying and controlling the erratic excitement of their new ability. They take it slowly, not attempting the evolution again for the rest of the day, but testing their ability to spark it once they set up camp, just to know they have spark to ignite the match. The next day takes them through a col in the mountain, the signs of manmade — or other — paths a promising lead, and with few pokémon looking for a fight. They knock on a few unfortunate geodude with their feet, and a graveler goes flying above their heads without no warning or follow-up, but most trouble keeps their distance.

With the sun still in the sun, they climb into a small opening, the backdrop of the stone walls dropping away. The three of them gather along the cliff side, turned in the same direction.

It stands like a great monolith in the distance, rock withered over time into its broken shape, until Red makes sense of its details, and can tell by the city at its feet that it’s Shalour, and the tower he’s been looking for. The ocean hugs around the isle, lazy waves barely visible from where they stand, separating the two lands down to a single bridge.

But that sea—he thinks he can smell it, can taste it on the front and back of his tongue. It tastes like salt and longing, a little like a home he goes back to now and then, sinking him down into its depths. Memories not his.

“Let’s go then,” he says, touching Blastoise’s rounded arm.

They move quickly, a yearning continuing to lap inside Red like a forgotten wave. It tires him on some level, the return of Blastoise’s eager energy, while numbing the ache that’d been creeping into his feet, making him only think of swimming (a little not good, when trying to walk) and cold blue waters. But he breathes and deals with it, keeping a careful watch on where he puts his feet on the ground when every time, they feel ready to sink into the sea.

It’s a surprise then when he suddenly knocks into something hard, and that hard thing is Blastoise, who’s stopped.

Red rubs his nose, then peers from the side of the pokémon — and he sees the issue, where the way opens upwards towards a slope, thick fists pounding away at the stone and crystal of the climbing wall.

_Trouble._

Three hariyama, with four training makuhita. They're a distance away, the hariyama watching their un-evolved counterparts, and Red ushers for Blastoise to step back quick out of sight as he does the same. But a blue-shelled bulk that shouldn't be there is hard to miss amongst the greys and browns it appears before, and the hariyama are large and aware. It takes just one to spot them, and for its accompanying makuhita to turn their head as the same, to instantly grow animated with fists waving in the air — and the rest follow suit, bellowing cries of excitement at the opportunity that's shown up.

The hariyama have no choice but to let them go, and Red has no choice but to engage.

One makuhita jumps into a ball as it scrambles down the hill, which is all it takes to encourage the others to do the same; soon, four makuhita use the distance and slope to become golems, rolling uncontrollably, gaining speed. Red gestures for Blastoise to take aim midway and to use water spout, and he throws aside Red's bag onto the ground and gets into quick position, swinging his body in an attempt to knock some of them with the spraying water.

It catches two and flings them back, while one skids on the muddied ground and tumbles unfolded. The last misses the range completely, but also a good stopping point, and continues into whatever exists below. A hariyama chases after it while the other two stay back a distance, each of its hammering steps shuddering at Red's core. He inhales, exhales, putting a hand to the stone. Blastoise is still evolved, has been for what must be coming up to an hour; de-powering is an option, but so is this. A reckless, reckless option, they never learn, do they _—_ but isn't that how they like it?

He rests a hand over a pokéball — ready, just in case.

The makuhita stand up sluggishly one second, but cry out with fists beating at their chests the next, the slapping of the hariyamas drumming louder with them. There's no time for waffling after that — they're incoming, close distant fighters, that and their lack of speed their weaknesses. Blastoise sends a salvo of white light at them from his smaller cannons, while Red signals for Charizard to stay back at her increasing agitation to join in. Three makuhita on one blastoise might be fine to the hariyama, but who knew how opposed they would be to join in if she did too?

Time for a gamble. They were always about gambles.

Red swallows against the lump in his throat. Beams hit, some miss; the makuhita persist anyway, thrusting fists and tackling at Blastoise. The first makes contact with his shell, making it the perfect target for a punch to the head with a flash beam shot in succession, while the other climbs Blastoise's arm to slam a fist of its own into his face, knocking his head aside. Shaking it doesn't work to throw it off, but a cannon aimed at it does, or the portion of the shot that grazes the pokémon as another makuhita slams a flat palm into it.

A numb sensation shoots up Red's arm, then turns to tingling in the ends of his fingers; Blastoise tries flexing his claw, which jerks, shaking by paralysis. The pokémon spits out a short roar, takes aim on the still-standing makuhita, and shoots. It falls amongst bodies already eager to stand once more, groaning and whining and crying stubbornly, and _—_ and Red feels his concentration waning, digging fingers into stone, rubbing them into until he feels them scrape and hurt.

But he stops, when all sound is drowned by the hariyama. They cry, hands slapping their bodies like tremors, and start in their own heavy bumbling towards them, rocking the ground with their attempted hurried steps. Great, _great._ Red pushes through the straining link _—_ _water spout, with everything you've got —_ while waving for Charizard to now join in; waving once, twice _—_

The line snaps, and Red shudders into the wall as Blastoise shifts and spits water from his separated back cannons. Charizard roars beside him, then it moves away, up ahead; but Red isn't watching with the dizziness behind even his eyelids, and gravity trying to pull him down.

" _Holdddd on!_ Hawlucha, _gooooooo!_ "

A hariyama groans, but the sound is cut short by the booming of a falling body, the shockwave of air and dirt particles reaching even him. His eyes aren't opening, and so all he can hear is sounds; another cry (of a man, a human man), the squawk of a— a flying-type? —and the thrashing of movement, of flames being spurted and another hariyama cry.

The commotion continues, until it doesn't. Silence doesn't rise in its place with the man's animated voice continuing to say something or other, but Red's too busy forcing his eyes to open to listen, to see what's in front of him, treading slowly to place a hand on Blastoise's shell when it's still him there. The pokémon looks back, then shifts to give him room, raising an arm to put behind Red's back when he comes forward, to better investigate.

A man in a karate garb stands with fists against his waist, chattering to the hariyama who now sit upright and quiet, watching him with ease. The makuhita are motionless before them, all previous conviction diminished. Charizard stands between both sides, watching the hariyama warily; she turns though when the man does, who makes a sound upon seeing Red, and begins walking briskly towards him, Charizard on his heels.

"Trainer! Not many of us come this way. The hariyama are always looking for strong challengers! You... oh!?" He stops abruptly, eyes wider than Red's ever see them before _—_ but the man looks like someone from closer to home than Kalos, and that's enough for Red to ask, "Do you understand me?" than to try anything Kalosian.

"Yes!" the man instantly replies, fists returning to his sides. "I know you, as well! It's been so long, but I could never forget you and your pokémon, and the battle you gave me! Red!" His body goes forward in a bow, hanging there, his head tipping up first to look at him fiercely. "I hoped to one day see you again... this can only be a sign!"

Red just blinks at him, speechless, dumbfounded; until the realisation hits him completely, sending him back to eleven years of age, looking at the man from a different height, but still there, in the present.

This was—


	6. Chapter 6

"—The Karate King?"

"I have no right to call myself that here!" The man shakes his head adamantly, in contrast to the hawlucha and machamp at his sides, who nod theirs eagerly. "Until I have established myself here, please, call me Kiyo!"

The trio bow their heads in sync. Red stares at them, him, a little blankly. Along the road before them, a pair of girls on rollerskates breeze on by.

Red declined going to a pokémon centre on their arrival to the seaside city, and so the Karate King — or Kiyo, that is — took him to the sandy coast, close enough for him to let his pokémon out to go the rest of the way, while they kept to higher ground. Blastoise and Lapras were seen now and then within the receded waters, Venusaur and Charizard more interested in enjoying the heat of the sun warming the sand, probably, while Snorlax participated in his usual favourite past time of sleeping.

Only Pikachu bothered to stay with Red, watching their company with an ear tilted and mouth open in curiosity, and when Red finally asks, “What are you doing in Shalour?”

"I heard Shalour's gym was a fighting type gym," Kiyo explains, his voice as passionate as his tightly clenched fist, "so I came to see what I could learn! But their fighting gym is different from any I have seen with my own two eyes. They train their body and mind in a different manner than most!"

He spreads his hands out in his dramatics, Red half-tempted to ask what he means, half-wary about doing so, until Kiyo fixes him with an intense look. "But you—you share a skill that the Gym Leader does! The Gym Leader Korrina... also known as the Successor to Mega Evolution! Yes, I've heard all about this incredible gift between trainer and pokémon! Is that why you came here?"

The Gym Leader—? Red shakes his head. "She runs the Tower of Mastery?"

"No! That would be her grandfather — but she has the right to use Mega Evolution under his training!" Then, Kiyo exclaims abruptly: "I should introduce you! It would be my honour!"

Unsure of the offer as he is, Red accepts, half-certain it's of his own volition than because of the once-Karate King's enthusiastic nature. It couldn't hurt anyway, is what he thinks; but he admits to Kiyo that he can't really speak Kalosian well enough to hold a conversation (or even a stiff exchange).

 _Leave it to me!_ , Kiyo had reassured him. But, even if he said to do that…

 

* * *

 

 

"Je vous présente Red! Il utilise Méga-Évolution! Je l'ai vu!”

"C'est vrai?"

“Oui!”

...Red wasn't sure what he expected, but standing there, watching the Gym Leader—blonde, young, and lively-looking—smiling and nodding at Kiyo as the once-Karate King speaks so fluidly probably wasn’t it. That sure showed him: apparently everyone had prepared for coming to Kalos except him, which he tried not to focus too hard on. Or to imagine Green's smug face. Same impact, really.

But at least he knew now what Kiyo meant about the gym's type of practice, maybe. The inside of the gym was a roller-skating rink than the usual dojo-type set-up that any fighting-type club he'd been in. It was currently in use, skaters going off railings, shouting conversations from every other side. Red tries not to get distracted by the noise and energy in the room, putting his focus to listen closely to what Kiyo was saying.

“Blah blah blah blah,” he says.

(Green's smug intensifies.)

 _Mega Evolution_ was about the one thing Red understood when it came up, which had Korrina's eyes brightening, turning more passionate. Red's mouth thins, worry in the back of his throat.

"I'm new to using Mega Evolution," he cuts in to remind Kiyo. "I can't hold it for long. What you say—that's why Blastoise unevolved when you saw us."

Hopefully, that would stop from any misunderstandings taking place. Kiyo doesn't look fazed anyway, simply nodding in his eager way.

"And Miss Korrina may be able to aid you! Pourriez-vous aider _?_ "

Korrina taps at her chin as she seems to consider Kiyo's question, eyes pointed up, but playfully gives up the act in a friendly-sounding response that gets a delightful laugh out of Kiyo. It’s followed by hearty slaps to Red's back, knocking him off balance.

"Waahhh, she has accepted you, Red! Your battle shall be inspiring!"

He adjusts himself upright once more, his thin-lipped smile faltering, but not entirely thrown off. _Trust Kiyo,_ some part of his mind tells him. _What’s the problem for? Just ‘cause he’s twice your age and didn’t skimp out on the textbooks?_

Whatever, that voice. But alright, fine, it wasn’t wrong.

They had all the time in the world, anyway.

 

* * *

 

Kiyo is hospitable and friendly, if forceful in all of his traits. He leads Red to a hotel to stay in, then admits to camping out and using public facilities to wash, so as to save his money on a personal project. Red offers to buy them a room for the night in thanks, which leads to a bone-crushing hug, and exclamations that sound like they might lead to crying, but don't.

In payment, Kiyo makes them noodle soup made from the ingredients around the city on the cheap, but far from bad. The eggs and meat fill their dishes more than anything else, which makes Red gets halfway through, along with the rich broth, before he has to offer the leftovers to his blastoise in defeat. He takes the bowl heartily.

"How did you recognise me?" Red leans back to give his stomach breathing room, ready to burst at the seams. He knew he should've stopped earlier, but it was hard to say no to noodles. When was the last time he'd _had_ noodles?

Kiyo holds a slice of boiled egg between his chopsticks. "I never forget the face of opponents who have bested me! You look exactly like you did the day we met! Yes," he nods, scooping up noodles to go with his egg. “You're the spitting image of my memory!"

What a mega punch to his pride. Red frowns, fingers instinctively reaching to pick at his shirt. But he drops the hand, tries to shove aside the self-conscious thoughts. "So what's your personal project?" he says, and not _I was eleven, what do you_ **_mean_ ** _I look the same?_

(Shove harder, Red.)

Kiyo's mood shifts instantly, becoming sombre as he places a fist to his chest. "For a long time, I have been shackled by what I saw as my failures, without realising they were necessary lessons. I left my dojo to train in the mountains, believing that my students would do well without me — and when I returned, they had scattered. Separated, because of me."

He bows his head. Red keeps quiet, allowing Kiyo to continue in his own time.

"I decided then...there was more I needed to learn about: not just strength, but about humility, and what it was I wanted to achieve in life. Truly, I had not reached my pinnacle!" He thrusts the chopsticks out, pointed skyward, before jabbing them into the bowl. "So I travelled the world, learning more from other dojos and fighting-type gyms, before I decided what it was I wanted. And still, it was to have my own dojo, and to help others learn what I knew. But this time in a new part of the world, to show the grace and art of karate!"

Kiyo's pokémon — a hitmonchan, hitmontop, hawlucha, and machamp — all burst into praises and joy, waving limbs and fires igniting brighter, leading to a deep-bellied laugh from the karate fanatic. _Like trainer, like pokémon_ , Red's reminded of, smiling quietly.

Was it coincidence, or Kiyo's influence on them? They used to say pokémon took after the trainer, but it always made Red wonder.

 

* * *

 

In the case of Kiyo and his team, Red becomes well-acquainted in the ways they're similar and different. Kiyo has been training at Korrina's gym, which for the most part means learning how to rollerskate, finding it highly important to do, and not just at the basics. Most of the gym trainers are younger than him, some even younger than Red, but most seem to find Kiyo endearing in the same way he does: passionate, if goofy. It's a nice mixture that Red hasn't enjoyed in a while, and the man in skates is a sight every time.

Kiyo wakes at six on the dot every morning, and falls to sleep at ten at night just as easy. Red gets used to this the more they sleep together, which becomes a constant when he decides to camp with the man and his pokémon. With his usual visits to her gym, Kiyo helps Red in his interactions with Korrina, who challenges him to a battle that he succeeds in, even with an evolved lucario. The battle is thrilling; they're more than adept as a team, no show of fatigue on Korrina's end until the last moments, bringing out the desire in Red that he had buried in the mountains to the surface.

Even so, it makes him worried when Korrina supposedly asks to see Blastoise evolved, which he'd decided against for the match. But she reassures through Kiyo that she only wants to see, to which Blastoise is all but happy to oblige to, for a trainer with strong pokémon. It leads to a conversation of what are the issues, and any help she might be able to give, as well as the discussion of meeting her grandfather.

The main takeaway is: train more, and to take their time. And probably not, Red figures, losing control in the wild at the most inopportune times over and over.

With that, Shalour becomes the better place for them to stay for the time. The idea doesn't disagree with Red as much as Lumiose had, the two cities incomparable, and not only in their sizes. His pokémon are more than happy to make use of the sea, and the travelling trainers coming from the reflection caves make for good warm-ups, as well as extra cash.

Sticking with Kiyo’s love for the outdoors is also a welcoming, _welcoming_ breath of fresh air next to Green’s apartment, no matter how much he misses the fridge. Their levels aren’t compatible, but the man has skill in discipline, and teaches him and Blastoise well in how not to over-exert themselves while providing them the lessons to test it. The days slip past easy, and moreso when Kiyo introduces Red to the makuhita and hariyama in the mountains that apparently, he's been acquainted with for longer than the day they met.

"When they see a strong opponent," Kiyo explains, him and each of the wild pokémon posed in a line, their fists propped against their sides, "it is hard for them to control themselves! But surely they will make great training partners. I guarantee it!!"

They're relentless practice partners, that's for sure. They bring Red stones from the caves some of the times, and twice, potions. Red uses one to patch them up, and thinks to bring them lemonade in return. This results in more gifts, and looking at him expectantly before he leaves each night.

So he makes sure to bring them regularly, chilled by Lapras, because everyone deserves lemonade in its most refreshing state.

 

* * *

 

Red isn't sure if he's been there just weeks or over a month before he recognises how used to Kiyo's internal clock he's become, or to the sound of the sea following him everywhere. He's learnt how to rollerskate just for the fun of it, and finds them not so bad, if not as fun as riding a bike. People were rolling around back in Lumiose too, and Santalune, he thinks.

But it’s Lumiose that he focuses on, and Green, and if _he_ knew how to use them. Would he even bother? Probably not. But if he did, would he find it easy? Or stumble and fall just as many times as he had?

Red decides it doesn't matter, because the image of him in them, wobbling around, hands splayed and fearful he’ll topple over any second, is enough to make Red grin, and laugh.

And it starts from there: he begins to think more about Green.

Korrina's grandfather had recognised Green's name when Red brought him up, but he hadn't much reason otherwise to think about him. Now, he almost can't help it: comparing the time spent with Kiyo, how more comfortable the outdoors have been to his over-fancy, over-minimalist _maison_ , the things he's learned about Kiyo. The things he hasn’t about Green.

There was some stuff, sure. His school life, the documentary channel he liked to leave playing in the background, the snacks he thought he hid well in his bedside drawer (finders keepers); his strange new past-time flirting with anyone with a cute face. But none of that stuck out in the way Red wanted something to; nothing as telling as it'd been with the karate king.

They connected easily. But him and Green, there was a barrier there, it felt. The danger of _getting close_ , of things being like _the old times._ Questioning every gesture, minding not to get too comfortable.

Maybe it was stupid, to compare them at eleven to them now, in the present.

He hesitates, anyway, chewing on the inside of his cheek—until Lapras bumps the side of his face, breaking him out of his reverie. She's eyeing him inquisitively, humming for good measure, the campfire flickering in her gaze.

"It's nothing," Red reassures her, leaning his head into her chin, the smell of saltwater faint in the air. "I was just thinking...it was fun, getting to hang out with Green's pokémon, wasn't it? They're stronger than most of the trainers here."

Pikachu and Snorlax are the two to perk up. Lapras doesn't stir, still watching him, as if waiting. Red looks away, lips pursing tightly together.

"I just think it'd be cool to meet up with them soon," he says as naturally as the words should be. A shrug. A flick of the head. "Have a battle. How about it?"

Pikachu chirps, jumping off from Snorlax's belly to come by his feet, standing on hind legs and waving his little front paws in agreement. Red chuckles a little, tips his head to Venusaur beside him—but receives the same inquiring look in her as had been on Lapras.

He turns his attention to the pot on heat, giving the stew inside a stir.

"I'll call him tomorrow," he says without conviction, but to seal the decision, and to get them off his back before they could even begin.

That would be that.

 

* * *

 

Actually making the call takes more than a few words said aloud.

That would help too, but so would be doing more than staring at Green's number, before deciding to look at the other options available. He has voice messages with dates going back a couple of years (skip), a radio he’s forgotten how to work, and a map function that comes up blank. No surprise there. There’s the settings, a calendar… look at all these things he’ll never use.

Okay, he knows — there’s really no real reason for him to be avoiding making the call.

He tells himself this a few times. He tells himself it's call fright, or something like that; whatever sounds logical, and works as a reason. Not used to making phone calls. What else could it be? He didn't expect Green to laugh in his ear for ringing, as likely as it would've been years ago. And what if he said no, that he was busy? It wasn't going to be the end of the world.

So, there was no real reason for him to be avoiding making the call.

_So make the damn call already, Red._

 

* * *

 

* * *

 

 

* * *

 

 

"Yeah?"

 

". . . —Hey. It’s Red."

 

* * *

 

* * *

 

 

* * *

 

 

It takes a week to reach their meeting spot, because Green won't be able to get there until next week, and Red likes the challenge in taking his time when he knows there's no rush. He doesn't get too lost along the rough mountain paths ( _real_ paths, this time), and lands outside Ambrette before a day before Green will be around.

Copper roads match the walls of the mountain that squeezes the town in near to the sea, and it's more peaceful than Shalour, small and quiet and unimposing, though not without its own fair share of rollerskaters and well-dressed trainers. But it's without Kiyo's energy, who'd manage not to cry at their good-bye, despite the face that wanted to.

He misses his presence, once he circles everywhere but where shops become homes and there’s nothing left but a mostly discarded beach, or one of the ten or fifteen cafés lining it.

Hotels, too. It’s while ambling along them, with little else to do than pretend he enjoys peace for peace’s sake _,_ that he calls Green a second time, the wind muffling through the line. Easier this time, when he has a more concrete purpose.

"Want me to buy us a room?"

" _You_ , buying?” Green responds. “Wait, you already got there?"

"Yeah."

"Gee, you're eager, huh? Alright, wait a sec... You seen the _Hotel Ambrette?_ "

It doesn’t even take a minute for Green to take the lead. There's actually a hotel named that, surprisingly, about as quaint-looking as all the rest. Green is a nagging earpiece that sends him to the front desk, handed over to the perplexed woman behind it, then handed back again, before Red gets to check out more than a flower vase in a corner in the tiny entrance room.

"You're in."

"Huh?"

Red blinks, looking to the woman again, then going back to the pokégear.

"What do you mean, _huh?_ ” Green says. “I added a night for you. Business is slow around there anyway. Anyway, I've got stuff to do, so I'll see you tomorrow, alright?"

When Red drops the call, the key is waiting for him on the counter, the woman smiling politely at him.

"Enjoy your stay," she offers in her best Kantonian.

"I don't get him," Red says aloud to Pikachu, who’s bouncing between two beds, separated by matching bedside drawers. He squeaks happily while patting at the fluffy blankets, and Red sighs. Alright, so he could admit as well: there wasn't anything _to_ get about the gesture. It didn’t mean anything.

It's just as Green says, when he arrives the next day—"I know I didn't _have_ to do anything, but I already booked us the hotel. You got lucky, that's all."

Red doesn't stop chewing the inside of his mouth any less. Green rolls his eyes, throwing his wash bag at Red’s chest. "Stop sulking over my generosity. You want me to leave you outside next time? Fine by me. Put that away for me and we can find out if there's anything actually exciting around here."

Excitement amounts to the aquarium, which Red pulls a reluctant Green towards, promising to pay for admission. Green learns the joke when the front desk asks for nothing but for them to enjoy, but he eases up as they walk around the tanks, with pokémon from as far as some place called Alola swimming carefree.

"They come together and form _that?_ " Green angles away from the info board, depicting a monstrous blue being with a gaping maw, blurred by the waters _'it'_ swims in. "As if. Look at them! Can you believe it?"

Red peers at the tiny white pokémon with their glassy eyes, no bigger than a forefinger, and the monster on the board.

"Like Robo-Mon,” he says.

"What?"

"The show where five kids transform a giant robot and battle evil."

"..."

"They turned into a giant dragonite."

"Great. Helpful. _Thanks_."

Red gives a thumbs up. Green walks off, leaving him for a room with fossilised remains in centre cases and relicanth floating eerily in place inside the tanked walls. They distract Red first when he follows in, but the keen interest that Green lingers over the fossils with brings him over to join him, to see what's there.

Green taps on the glass at a plate-shaped mound of rock, markings pressed into them.

"I found a guy like that back around Hoenn. They go far back — back to when kabuto were around. We think kabuto ate them, but then their evolved form ate them."

Red looks at Green curiously.

"What do they evolve into?"

"Flying types. Think about a wingspan like an aerodactyl’s, then stick it on a kingdra. Their skulls are kinda the same… What, what's with that face?"

Green frowns, noticing Red’s stare, the psyduck-eyed look Red knows he’s wearing, but can’t tear off. "I wanted to learn more about my aerodacytl, so I went talking to some bigwigs and ended up on some fossil excavation jobs. What's it to you?"

He turns away with shoulders going rigid, a pursed pull to his bottom lip, or of what Red can see of it. He’s staring hard the display, and it turns the surprised interest Red had into confusion.

"Why are you getting defensive?”

"I'm not!"

"Yeah, you are. You're shouting."

"Because _you—_!" Green leans in with a pointed finger, stopping only an inch from jabbing Red when his eyes point up. Something—like their lack of privacy, most likely—must catch his attention, because he pulls back, the colour to his face now more obvious as he huffs, spinning on his heel.

" _Whatever_ , it's not a big deal."

Except it is, keeping Green soured through the rest of the rooms, and Red's attempts to talk to him about it ("It's okay if you like rocks") end up with a cold shoulder or a kick to his ankle. He's impatient to get out of the place, hurrying Red as he buys a couple of souvenirs, along with a stick of rock-hard candy he pops into his mouth.

"Cahn I cohme?"

Green furrows his brow at him. "What?"

"Whehn yoh go—" Red takes out the stick, licking his lips. "When you go fossil digging."

Green stares at him, before his gaze narrows. "What," he says again.

"What?" Red wraps his teeth around the end of the candy, managing to break off a corner into his mouth to crunch on. "Use your mouth and make them let me dig with you. The people in charge."

"Sweet talk, it's called _sweet talking_ , Red, and— why?"

"Why not?" He shoots back. "There's no gym here. What am I going to do while you poke at rocks? I could've stayed in Shalour if you were going to ditch me for cave digging."

He then stops when it hits him, eyes widening into his forehead. He’s an idiot, a moron; how could he forget about the most important thing of _all?_

When he turns to Green, who’s in the middle of going “Wha—?”, Red doesn’t wait.

"We haven’t _battled_ yet," he points out, in utter disbelief.

And that’s as much further delay Red’s going to allow, ignoring the "Seriously?" at his back as he hurries along the beach, to get them farther away from the town.

The sand crunches when Blastoise’s feet finally press into it, scattering away as Pidgeot’s wings lift him from it. Red’s heart is pounding by then, their appearance a promise of the approaching fight, and Green doesn’t look as bothered anymore from where he’s standing. Their respective key stones flicker with light, the symbol of Mega Evolution blinking in, and then the initial energy cocooning their forms.

The too-familiar familiar wave creeps at Red’s back. Rising, rising, _rising_ —until it comes crashes down suddenly, rushing through him, and inside the line connecting him and Blastoise, shattering apart the shell encasing him.

Red keeps his ground, inhaling a sharp breath that isn't a gasp for air, the recoil sending shivers down his arms. But now, he knows how to command Blastoise's current, thrashing around eagerly, a storm in itself.

_Our power, in our control._

 

* * *

 

The battle doesn't invite them much privacy, where onlookers from the safety of the road side dare to swarm on them, once they're certain the match between the two strange pokémon is over.  Red watches them dazed, keeping on his feet despite gravity strongly suggesting otherwise, the meaning of their words delayed (and then oh, right: Kalosian). Green takes the centre stage by waving them off, exhaling irritably.

"Come back when you've beaten the league, alright? Red—hey, Red, this way."

Green takes his arm, leading him back towards the streets. He shoves him down into a seat at the pokémon centre while their pokémon heal up, then helps him pull himself together with the lull of the centre, a drink of water.

"The fact you're conscious at all — I'm impressed," Green remarks. It even sounds a little like it, too.

"It took you this long?" Red smiles, flimsily.

Green doesn't dignify him with a response, and turns away.

 

* * *

 

 

Red tries to convince Green to go mountains with him and their pokémon, a plan of action that gets a "Are you kidding me?" out of it, Green shoving his holo-thing into his pocket after some _nerd talk._ It's too late is the closest point to reasonable Green has to make, which Red still argues with, since it isn't really. Five o'clock? Late? Laughable; but they meet halfway on sticking to the beach, swapping the fancy eateries for more expensive takeaway than Red would pick, and even beers squeezed out of him.

"What if it sucks," Red complains reasonably, not whining.

"Trust me, I don't buy just any old crap like you. It's decent."

 _Decent_ is difficult for Red to decide, taking his first sip. It doesn't revolt him, but then, he's not sure he remembers what good beer is supposed to taste like. But it goes fine with his dinner, a contrast on his tongue, and he's about halfway through the can anyway before long, distracted by the lapping waves that most of the pokémon are making good use of. Gyarados, Blastoise, and Lapras have disappeared underwater, while Snorlax and Rhyperior have become a strange pair: Rhyperior sounding as ready as she looks to tear a few limbs off when Snorlax socks her right between the eyes, but holding back by lifting him an inch onto his feet, stumbling him onto the sand.

" _Pffft,_ " mocks Red. "Gonna take more than _that_ to throw Snorlax."

"She'll get his fat ass on the ground if she wanted to," Green fights back.

"Are you saying my snorlax isn't good enough?" Red asks defiantly.

"Stop your match-making right there, buster," Green jabs into his shoulder. Red gets halfway through "My Snorlax is a good-looking guy—" before Green chucks sand into his face, getting him coughing out the bits that find their way in his mouth. Green laughs. The bastard.

"Speaking about making a few hook-ups though, Red..." Red’s sucking up spaghetti into his mouth, pesto coating his lips when the words creep into the air. He throws a look at Green, squinting— _he knows that tone_.

"What about you, huh? You and Kris got along pretty well. She goes to the battle institute regularly, you know. You could 'accidentally'—" oh god, _air quotes_ "—bump into her a few times there."

Red's stare narrows even more. What was— was Green really doing this?

"Isn't she your _friend?_ " He asks dubiously.

"I can't help a friend get laid?" Green shoots back, far too easily. He then grins. "Don't tell me: You're _that_ embarrassing?"

Red doesn't answer, who’s decided to ignore as best he can the direction Green was leading their conversation to. Green, far from easily deterred when he should be, leans into the side of Red’s vision, his aura of smugness radiating onto him, the breath on Red’s cheek making him grow tense as horror looms dangerously close.

"Have you ever—” oh no nono “—had—” _nonono **no**_ “ ** _—sex_ ** , Red?" Green asks, low and syrupy, every word sticking to Red’s ear. “You want to?”

Red shoves at him without remorse, not caring for the yelp that sounds or the nose he knocks so hard even _his_ hand hurts.

"What is this? Some bad set-up to get me into bed?" He tries his best to sound normal, like the hard edge present in his voice isn’t there, or the raised tone, or the deep heat growing on his face. "Th' beer's not that good enough, _idiot_. Buy me better next time."

But it’s too late, and Red knows it; Green can’t even get through the retort he gives up on mid-way and just laughs with restraint, slapping once or twice at Red’s shoulder.

Nothing like Kiyo. Why did he even bother leaving. He should’ve stayed in Shalour.

Red just shovels another mouthful of food, head bent, searching out where Rhyperior and Snorlax are in their fight, ignoring all else. There's a new battler introduced by the form of Machamp, amidst an arm wrestle between both pokémon. But his block breaks easily, knocked back with a hammer arm from both of his assailants, onto the sand.

 _You want to?_  repeats in the crevices of his mind. His neck warms, and he sinks it lower, shoulders hunched as he curses his own brain.

"Alright, alright alright," Green finally concedes. "What you and Kris talked about back then— hey, subject changed, haha, _I mean it!_ I'm talking about the stuff with the legendaries. You got pretty into it. Remember? Suicune, and all that?"

His head twitches, wanting to believe, but he doesn’t turn to search for honesty on Green’s expression. He sucks on the sauce inside his mouth, recalling the occasion.  "Was interesting," he admits gruffly, off a tongue coated in suspicion. "You didn't like it?"

" _Sure_ ," Green responds slowly, "but... did you actually care about all that, or what?"

"I wasn't trying to impress her," he flatly states.

"Nooo." Green waves a hand, which Red spots out of the corners of his vision. There’s a huff, some silence, and— _fine_ —Red peeks to the side; there’s a strange tension to Green’s brow, an odd pinch to his mouth.

"I never knew you were into that stuff, that's all,” he finally admits.

Somewhere, somehow, all trace of the mood Green just whispered into his ear was gone from the conversation. It’s disorienting, suspicious—a lot suspicious. And yet Red can’t hold onto that fact, the tightened muscles of his shoulders loosening, inches coming back to his neck.

He doesn’t get _why_ , but he knows what Green’s doing. Or thinks, anyway, he’s somewhere close to knowing. It’s a question, somewhere along those lines — an offer to connect. The fact that Green even remembers that subject when Red can’t recall a peep from him says something.Awkwardly, he looks back to his bowl of pesto spaghetti, thinking.

"...I never knew you were into rocks," he decides to share in turn, testing the mood with it. But Green does the opposite of what he hopes, glaring at him, which Red meets quizzically. “I mean it,” he says; but it doesn’t change Green’s expression, and Red gives up, going back to twirling the strands around his fork.

But he doesn’t like the silence, the annoying misunderstanding, and he accepts that he needs to be the one to continue, slipping his spin.

"When I go somewhere new... I like to find out rumours about the place. Stories about strong trainers, pokémon, legendaries—it gives me somewhere to go. I want to experience everything I can about a place, and to me, stories about legendaries means there’s something to be found. Even if it’s an empty cave, it’s usually fun to get there."

Fun, when the definition of it meant dangerous. Sinking into depths you barely had a way into, much less one back out _._ It was the same thrill he had all the years ago, climbing the highest snowy peaks and making them into a home. Trudging the deepest caverns that promised death before safety, where an unnatural beast lurked, eyes a purple glow.

He can see them now, as sharp as ever.

“When you go where most people won’t,” he says, “you learn what you can do, and for a second… you feel connected to something, about the world.”

A proud squawk rings in the air, interrupting them. Looking up, Pidgeot is making his descent, returning from wherever it was he’d gone. Arcanine and Pikachu are a figure in the distance coming from the same direction, the yellow pokémon a small bundle in Arcanine's fur.

Pidgeot makes a small hop towards where the bags of food sit for him to poke a beak into, not paying either of the trainers much mind.

"What are you going to do when you're done here?" Red asks, to pick back up any semblance of a conversation. His shoulders feel looser, more at ease than they had. He wanted to talk. "Go back to the gym?"

"Probably," Green shrugs, rubbing at the back of his neck. "Who knows. I don't have everything planned out. I'm still young, you know?"

Red eyes him, wondering if to test his luck, but decides against it, and sets aside his empty takeaway bowl. Arcanine and Pikachu have finally caught up to Pidgeot, the fire-type panting lightly with her tongue out. Pikachu hops down, squeaking away cheerfully as he joins Pidgeot in late evening munching.

But it’s Pidgeot who takes his attention. Sipping on his drink, Pidgeot only regards him momentarily out of the corner of his eye, before returning to the dried berries pooled out for the pokémon (that aren’t Snorlax) to take at their whim.

Pidgeot’s bigger than him now, Green as well; but even so, with a full plumage and no feather out of place, a proud personality that shines through without effort — Red could be eleven again, watching him take to the skies above, dousing them below in his shadow, more worrisome in battle than any wild pokémon ever was.

Green and Pidgeot — the team that was always the pain in Red's ass when they were kids.

"I'm glad the stone turned out to be for Pidgeot,” he shares abruptly, bringing it out from his thoughts. Green makes a small noise in his can.

"You do?” Green blinks, moving his lips away from his held-up beer. “Why?"

"'Cause," Red says, a smile crossing his lips, "you've always made a good team, you two. It fits."

Green sputters as he tries to find a response, moving around restlessly; he leans back, huffing, rolls his shoulders, then makes some dismissive grunt as he shakes his head to delay giving any better response.

Red grins, unable to hold back some laughter. Pidgeot studies the pair of them now, while Red decides to help his trainer to save face. "He's really cool, isn't he? I bet he's real handsome for a pidgeot."

Green takes it, rolling his eyes expressively. "Are you trying to date my pidgeot?"

"Sure am."

Pidgeot just stares, with enough judgment for them both.

Green hogs the shower as soon as they get back, complaining about sand, dirt, and Red, even once the door is closed. Red picks out the pieces of the beach out from Pikachu's feet and fur, shooing him onto Green's bed at a point to leave any small gifts that's been missed.

"I decided — tomorrow, after we've finished up for the day, you're buying me dinner. A real dinner. None of this takeaway stuff, you got it? Every time you're around..."

His voice blurs as Red watches him emerge, nothing but a towel around his waist keeping him decent. The earlier drink makes his bed ten times cosier than it would be without, and he’s more interested in watching than listening, noting Green’s soft, flat-looking chest. The Kalos weather's done some good for him, at least; given his usually pale skin some colour, even his back, which he gets a full view of more as Green sits beside his bedside lamp, dealing with the clothes he got out prepared, but didn't think to take into the shower room with him. He pulls on the knot of the towel, tugging it off from his hips; revealing where the upper thigh of his leg curves inward, and then where the skin once hidden fades lower into its original paper-pale shade.

Red feels the weight to his chest with each of his breaths, and he continues to watch. For any glimpse to see beyond what his lowered place on his bed will allow, willing his eyes to curve around the shape of Green’s body. And then, he gets exactly what he was looking for, when Green stands up with his back bent, ass facing him, working his legs into his pyjama bottoms and letting everything loose inbetween.

Sense, or something like it, finally knocks into Red.

Pikachu squeaks indignantly when he spins onto his other side, but Red ignores him, burying his head into the pillow as he wills the heat to go from his face—what is he, five? Get a grip—, and not to travel, low, down past his stomach.

"—Red? Red, don't play asleep. I want to eat at a table, got it?"

He grunts the response. Green sighs loudly before clicking the table lamp on at his back to replace the room light. Red hears the other bed shift under Green's weight.

"You're not getting a shower either?" Green asks.

"Tomorrow,” he responds.

"Teeth?"

" _Night, mom_."

"Whatever. Your losses."

The light clicks off, leaving them in darkness. Pikachu doesn't stir, and Red doesn't know if he dares to move, waiting to hear if Green will speak or change his mind, flick the light back on. But there's nothing, no noise of footsteps in the hall outside their door, no sounds of the sea not far from where they sleep. There's nothing for him to think about, either.

No, not a thing. Nothing.

That's what he tells himself as the flash of Green's cock sticks to his mind, shapely legs burning themselves over his retinas. It should be stupid, funny; but Red can't stop thinking about the empty space inside his own mouth turning wet, the pang of guilt knocking at his stomach that’s not as prominent as the twitch between his legs. The want, how his mind is connecting the dots spite the _no, no, he doesn’t want to; it’s just, maybe, what would it be like— just, well, what if—_

Red slips out of bed, quickly — so he can wash the images down into the drain, and out of his head.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> co-written by google translator.

Light creeps from the underside of the curtain, signalling the early morning that's broken since Red was last awake. The drumming of rain has ended, the night departed; and now, every excuse that’s kept him and Green together was gone.

Red chews at the thought uncomfortably, staring under heavy eyelids at the bundled form of Green's back ignoring him.

But what else was new.

It would be easy to wake him. Red’s gone through every method of doing it in his head, time meaning little when he can't fall back to sleep. The simplest and most effective would be yanking open the curtain, flooding in the day with obnoxious calls to get up. There was nothing Green hated more than the prospect of _waking up_ ; even when Daisy would come and draw the curtains with promise of breakfast, Green would mumble and grumble all the way out of bed, Red already allured by the smell of pancakes.

But there'd be no pancakes this morning, no welcoming sight of Daisy. That was then and this was now, and Red was acutely aware of the past and the present, what was and wasn't, and how little he could do to affect it.

It didn’t scare him. But sometimes, his stomach knotted up anyway, made him miss what his mind told him there wasn’t any point in missing. He became a contradiction, wasting time being angry, defiant, indifferent and hollow, and then chiding himself for getting wound in the first place. Time moved forever and a half in his head, but barely seconds in reality.

Still, there was a question in him—one Red knew Green would never agree to, but that lingered in the back of his throat, whenever they met.

 

_Why don’t we go together?_

 

* * *

 

"Wow," Green drones down the pokégear and straight into his ear. “You’re actually using that brick of yours on the regular now? What is it this time—did you catch Arceus, or did you finally lose the rat?"

Pikachu's ears perk on his lap, a mouthful of poffin muffling his chirp. Red pats him on the head, giving Green the silence he deserves while some nearby vendor offers a special on fresh miltank milk. Could he get a couple of bottles from the change he was collecting? Probably, but maybe he should go to a supermarket and check out the prices there. But then, there wasn’t any need to be stingy about _everything_ —

" _Fine,_ fine," Green finally gives in. "What's up? Where are you?"

"Lumiose."

"Eh? Don't tell me you forgot where my place is again—"

"No," Red cuts in.

"Well? Then what is it?"

Red pauses, searching for an answer when he doesn’t have one to give. One that isn't _No, I don't want to come over,_ that doesn't lead to _Why not?,_ and then, _Because I don’t know how to look at you,_ and he knows that doesn’t make sense _—_

"Red?"

"Sabrina," Red blurts out, reaching at some old conversation. "Didn’t you say she was in the region? Is she still around?"

Green goes quiet. It quickly gnaws at Red, but it’s a short self-inflicted misery when Green pipes up a few seconds after.

"Here..."

He gives Red her number, a phone call which leads to the south boulevard near buildings crammed tight yet no less striking. None of them look like anywhere he should be (and by the pursed mouth of the woman serving him at the patisserie store earlier, that was most places), but he goes through a set of purple double-doors into a large, glass lobby.

Red takes a few wary steps in, Pikachu already swinging his head around in fascination, nestled in his arms. But before Red can head to the front desk, he spots a woman who screams _security_ , and who in the turn spots him. Her sharp stare narrows.

_"Monsieur?"_

Her shoes clack immediately on the tiled flooring. Red swallows, ready to spin right back out the way he came. How exactly Sabrina thought _he_ was going to get anywhere like _this_ —

"Monsieur? Monsieur Red?"

The woman halts, and Red spots another woman at the— front desk, thank _Arceus_ , waving him over, a phone in hand. He spares the security a quick glance before he hurries over, Pikachu's bolt tail upright as he gives a low whine.

She slips a laminated pass on the counter, pointing towards a set of doors the other side of the lobby. " _Room 5,_ " she speaks in a heavy accent. " _Please hurry_." If she had anything to remark about his wear, she doesn't share it, and Red takes the pass with a grateful hum and dashes out before either of them can change their mind.

It leads him into a tiny corridor, with no end to the doors once on the other side. None of the first lot have numbers on their plates, and there’s a set of stairs he comes across on his right, which Red can only assume have a room _twenty_ before a _five_.

He continues with a hurrying pace. At the end of the next corridor he turns into, Red spots with surprise Sabrina standing there, prettied up in a dress of purple and cream, her hair pulled into a clip. Her eyes are striking even from afar, making him slow.

She’s staring directly at him. And then—

"There."

She points.

Red comes to a halt, and realises: she's not pointing at him, but beside him, where a pair of doors sit—with a large ‘ _5_ ’ printed on card above the frame. A woman in black comes around him and walks through them, oblivious to the pair.

"I'll see you once I'm done," Sabrina says. When he looks back, she’s already walking away. "Alakazam will be out to meet you."

She's then gone, as if she was never there.

Red finds a seat at the edge of the audience stands, Pikachu peeking out from his arms and squeaking when the psychic-type expert appears again on stage. She's joined by a group of people on lengthy couches talking in fluent Kalosian, or so it sounds in Red's ears. They laugh and Sabrina politely laughs back, the audience glued to the interview, talk show, whatever it is. Red sits absentmindedly through it all, trying not to fidget too much. He only pays some particular attention when a screen shows what looks like a movie trailer set in another language, but one familiar to his ears: Unovan.

The hosts chat excitedly once it’s over, while Red shrinks back into his seat, Pikachu’s squirming for something to happen. He shares in the sentiment, watching Sabrina, but finding it uncomfortable to linger on her for too long, and so swaps it at times with staring at the top of Pikachu’s head.

Once, he thinks he spots her looking his way, but it doesn't matter. Dressed in her warm colours and accented voice, there wasn't a lot he recognised about her, he realised. The Sabrina he knew was a different lifetime; the one here in Kalos...

"You're thinking this isn't me," she says.

She startles him out of his daydreaming, the pair now seated in her changing room. Sabrina faces a vanity mirror studded with warm lights, but her attention is set on a pokégear, finger darting with quick precision on the keys. She looks over to him once she's done, setting the phone down.

"I wondered about that too, when I started," she admits. Her alakazam rounds her chair, bringing her a bottle of a green-coloured drink in mid-air. Pikachu watches in rapt attention. "But I found it fun; it's exhausting, but different from the kind I'm used to, battling trainers or training my psychic abilities. I've found trying new things despite the difficulties an eye-opening experience than a waste."

Red sits quietly, a little lost on what to say. Sabrina notices. "Did I say too much?"

"Mm— no." He shakes his head. More than what he was expecting, but Red didn't want to make it out a bad thing. Unwilling to settle for empty pleasantries, he asks, "What was the movie they were showing?"

"That— it was my debut. I played a small role, a sadistic woman who had taken control of an entire land with her powers." She stands from her chair, sliding back without any physical pressure.

"The heroes needed to defeat me to finally reach the true villain of the plot. But.” She wrings her hands in the air, making taut an invisible whip Red pictures clearly, despite her stare on him keeping him transfixed. "I planned to make them my slaves," her voice drips, the tone of a different, _crueller_ woman.

Red swallows, hoping the sound is quiet. Hoping, too, she can't read any deeper reasoning into why he fiddles with the brim of his hat.

"Will you go?" Her voice returns to normal. Red feels himself begin to relax, but when he peeks over, Alakazam is watching him intensely. He pretends to adjust his hat again. "I told Green you were both invited to the first screening, of course..."

Oh. "Sure," he says, and Sabrina brightens.

"Good! I'm proud of my part, and my co-workers too. Though, I found it very obvious that the villainous king was the father of the lead's friend. You'll have to tell me if you feel the same."

"...Is that….a plot twist?"

Sabrina considers the question, then cocks her head dismissively. "Oh, hardly. You'll see," she replies confidently.

“... … ...”

Red follows her out of the building, the light of the day prickling at his eyes despite his hat, while she already wears a pair of sunglasses, prepared. Her taxi promptly pulls in right in front of them, as if it’d been waiting further up the road to make its appearance.

Was he reading too much into it? He had to stop doing that.

"I hear there is a château for battling here," Sabrina says, as they ready their goodbyes. "Maybe we can meet again there, once I'm done."

She holds out a hand, and Red takes it with a smile—and then her grip tightens as the fingers of her hand dig into his skin, her nails even sharper. There’s a wide-eyed stare behind the black glass of her shades.

"They're here," she whispers, impossibly coarse; and for a moment, Red thinks he can see her eyes glow a shade of purple. But then her hand flings back, the rest of her too, and she stumbles into the side of the car, alakazam rushing to her side.

It leaves Red in a stunned silence, the pain left behind by her crescent nails pulsing in his hanging hand.

* * *

 

 

The experience does well to keep Red dazed, until the crescent marks have just about faded, and he finally admits defeat in making any sense out of it when Sabrina had no clue herself, once she came to. He ends up flicking open his pokégear, with some half hearted idea to call Green. Maybe talk about what happened, see what Green thinks, ask what he’s doing, stop acting weird...

But below Green’s name in the phonebook is another, catching Red’s eye. He highlights it tentatively, thumb scraping over the rubber keys. Green had tapped it in after the day they spent collecting chunks of rocks and bits of dirt under their nails, chucking the phone back to him after.

_"Trust me," he had grinned. "She's more than just a cute face."_

Kris was prompt, not a second late on her earliest estimate, and Red only knows because he's closer to the institute to get there first. She smiles at him as politely as she had when they'd first met (or, rather, the second time), and Red's own is strained, trying not to remember Green's comments in Ambrette about bump-ins, and more.

Luckily, there's a good distraction once they throw their first pokémon: the sight of her quagsire is at first nostalgic, and then turns into an obstacle for Pikachu, hot bursts of water being used as a means to distract the faster pokémon before the call for earthquake comes after the rotund pokémon slams its balled-up body into the ground, sending shockwaves blistering every part of the room.

But such a move had been obvious—just which of the ground-type moves was the question—and a Pikachu in speed is one on alert to jump upon command, the answer an easy iron tail slammed into the blue blobbish form, not yet completely unrolled from its attack.

The quagsire is thrown back, and Red is almost disappointed. But it clambers up, rubbing the side of its head idly, seemingly unworried by the force. And soon with Kris’s call, the battle field becomes a mess of water and mud, a larger deterrent on his side of the room than Kris's. Tht becomes more apparent when she brings out a dragonite to try and finish off Pikachu, dirt clinging to his coat and refusing him his natural agility and easy flexibility of where to land.

Pikachu gets thrown back by an _Extreme Speed_ that Red hasn't seen in a while. As he sends the pokémon away, Red sees the passionate smile barely contained by the rules of politeness pressing into the girl's cheeks.

He tips his hat to a girl who can earn the respect of legendaries, and throws out his next pokémon.

The use of Mega Evolution only comes up because she demands — in her own way — for him not to hold back, and Blastoise is just as demanding. His rattling ball isn't any more insistent than Snorlax's thumping one at the time, but while Red could picture Snorlax easily as if he was in the room with him, on his feet and grinding teeth ruthlessly, Snorlax didn't have a stone burning in Red’s pocket as an added means of communication.

Through that, Red can hear Blastoise in his flesh, pressuring the corners of his mouth into the pokémon’s sardonic grin.

 _She wants a fight, we'll wipe her out,_ Red hears in his head.

The line between pulls taut and ready upon Blastoise’s release, his impatient energy spilling through, and out into the battlefield like a flood.

 

* * *

 

Red clicks the end of his pen, flexing at the agitation in his fingers, easing out a breath as quietly as he can. Kris is sitting next to him, almost shoulder to shoulder.

"So you keep track of how long each evolution lasts, and how you feel after. How do you feel now?"

"Okay," Red answers. Kris raises an eyebrow, taking note again of the notebook in his lap, her head tilting into his arm as she reads what he's written.

_Battle, 20? mins. OK. Still shaky_

"Blastoise is..." He goes to click the pen again, but decides against the anxious fiddling and grips it tight. "He still wants to fight," he reassures.

Kris leans away, her mouth thinning. "We don't get to battle as much as we used to," she starts, her voice tight.

"It's not you," Red hurries. "He's just like that."

Blastoise grins from his place, a shadowing figure next to Red, sitting upright. Red feels his mouth turn upward in the same wry-like expression—before he realises what he's actually _doing_ , with Kris right there. Her mouth thins even more, brow creasing hard. Red drops the smile as quickly as possible, but it's too late: she's getting onto her feet, straightening herself.

"Well, if that's the case," she says, her words hollow in their kindness, carefully sharpened behind their formal tone, "I can give him more. Are you ready to continue?"

Red stares at her, some small confusion joining the guilt that had grown in the bottom of his throat. Blastoise squeezes against it, understanding a challenge when he hears one, forcing to be acknowledged.

 _If she thinks she can beat them_ **_now_ ** _, let her try,_ the pokémon boasts in feeling.

 

* * *

 

She does.

Apparently, rental pokémon are a thing, and Kris's knowledge of more than her own team is impressive, if lost on Red by the time she whittles even him down on energy. Every last trace of Blastoise's smug attitude has been diminished.

But Kris herself wears it well, dangerously so, across the other side of the room.

"Did Blastoise try to Mega Evolve again during battle? It looked like the two of you struggled at the end. But it was fun, anyway! We should do this again sometime."

 

What was his life. What was with today.

 

* * *

 

"You got the Kris treatment, eh?" Green laughs. "She's _ruthless_ under that polite demeanour. You gonna be okay?"

Not even the suppressed smug of Green's voice can rattle him, not after Kris's unnerving delivery. Red continues to stare at the ceiling, questioning his whole life journey up to that point.

"Am I?"

Green's head replaces his view, exposing the smirk he already knew was on display. The stone hanging from his neck catches Red's eye, and then the two undone buttons on Green's shirt; the glimpse of his collarbone and maybe, if he were to strain to look further in...

He turns away.

"Don't worry about it, it'll be okay," Green goes on obliviously. "'Cept I'd actually check your messages now. 20 bucks says she'll be asking you for your schedule by Thursday."

"Is it a Johto thing?" Red wonders aloud, flashbacks of another pigtail-haired girl infiltrating his mind.

"Stop sounding so pathetic, you're making me feel bad I missed it." Red angles his head to watch when Green walks off, but he steps out of view, headed for the kitchen. "I got an invite for a match from someone else in a couple of days. You should come and meet them if you like girls who can kick your ass so much."

"I won _first_ ," Red reminds him, **_and_** _with a team of six_ on the tip of his tongue. Instead, he pauses.

"Who's been kicking your ass?"

"No one," Green answers quickly. Sounds fake, but okay. "But she used to be from Kanto too, for a while. Great legs," he adds approvingly.

Red holds his strained neck in place, then relaxes back into the couch, the words sinking somewhere in him, uninvited. It should be a good reminder to discard the images he’s been carrying in his head since Ambrette: where Green’s eyes went, and where they didn’t.

But that night, it's no better on the couch than he thought it would be sharing Green's bed. The room smells like him, and the empty living room gives Red’s mind privacy; gives it _time._ Every sensible thought to ignore the rousing fire in his stomach gradually loses to every argument that comes, a hand slipping under the blanket, resting over his stomach.

In his mind, Green's hand goes lower down a woman’s body, pushing aside fabrics, skirt and underwear, sliding fingers where they're welcomed, hot and wet. His erection strains against his clothes, against her, an unknown Red doesn’t care to give a face. But he wants to know how it feels; for Green, for her—for Red to be her, in that position.

And then it’s Green pressing his hips against him, hands travelling along his body, pulling up his shirt easier than Red can fumble his own, actual real one. A palm laid flat against his stomach, going down into the waistband of his slacks, under the elastic of his boxers while Green rubs more greedily against him for friction...

Red sighs, and freezes the fantasy, forcing himself back to reality. The room is quiet, dark, and he hasn't heard a thing from Green's bedroom in ages. He has the sense to listen to that, if not reason, before getting up to take the rest into the shower room, where the light burns his eyes as it pops on too brightly. It quells some of the fire in his stomach, and even more when he catches himself in the reflection of the cupboard mirror, eyes staring back at himself. Messy hair, average looks. Him.

He looks away.

Red knows he can't win out to great legs, annoying good looks, lips so confident, smooth, smirking between each kiss and spilling words that frustrate as much as excite him. But he’s stubborn to a big enormous fault, and in his fantasies, reality doesn't matter.

All that matters is the thought of being pushed flushed to a hard surface, trapped from escaping Green's body heat and advances. The thought of Green’s hand being his hand, what his tongue, their tongues, might taste like together, and Green fervently pushing Red over the edge despite his pleas, _no, not yet, please, yes,_ _Green,_ escaping his lips. And how too easily, quickly, despite his efforts, Red comes gasping and hot, the sticky mess coating his palm and fingers.

When Red shuffles back underneath the blanket, he feels queasy, sick to his stomach, more empty than satisfied.

He leaves a plate of eggs to go cold on the kitchen counter, out of the door before Green awakes.

 

* * *

 

Red doesn't hear about it when Green calls next. What Green's voice blasts through the earpiece is something or other about keeping pokégears on, _what's even the point if no one can get through to you?, I've been calling you blah blah blah blah_ —

"Did you catch Arceus?" Red interrupts somewhere during it all, then returns the phone far from his ear, until Green's volume turns back down.

Green doesn't give him a reason for the call, but makes clear it's important, that Red has to come into Lumiose now, and that the visit to the château is tomorrow.

"Can you make it?" Green snaps impatiently through the line. Red looks towards the icy trail promising to lead him to snow-covered peaks and pokémon preparing for hibernation, Dendemille somewhere behind the mountains before that.

He considers the two day trek it'd taken to get this far.

"Probably," he guesses.

Red gets into the city after midnight, welcomed to a locked door. Green doesn't acknowledge him when he finally opens up, which he probably only does because his neighbours have started banging on the walls over Red's incessant knocking.

The next morning, Red feels about as good as Green looks, who’s the first to wake up (for once). He shoos Red from the fridge when he heads there after relieving himself, kicking him out the front door to grab breakfast on the go.

" _Where_ ," Red repeats, for the who-knows-how-many-times since yesterday, " _are we going_."

Green acknowledges him finally, stopping and turning; but he takes the panini wrapper from Red’s hand and even his coffee cup, giving it a shake. Satisfied over its nearly empty state, he throws both in the trash. Red's foul mood rises, and not because he was enjoying the horrid drink.

"You're not getting into anywhere with decency dressed like a cartoon kid with a single set of clothes." Red squints at that, while Green brushes a hand over his clothes and through his unkempt hairstyle.

"We're getting you dressed," Green states. " _Properly_." And then he yanks Red towards him, shoves him from the back of the shoulders, and thrusts him through a set of sliding doors Red hadn't even noticed being there.

And there inside sits a large expanse of clothes stocked from corner to corner, dance music playing out from speakers overhead, as far as the eye could see.

Oh, _Arceus._

"Ohhhh no you don't," Green refuses when Red spins to leave on instinct, his hands a wall blocking him passage. He drags him at the elbow, the temptation to really dig his heels coming a moment too late, when Green finds where he wants them to be.

"Why," Red asks(, pleads, demands, _why, Green, why._ )

"They don't let charity cases inside the château, and I knew you wouldn't come if I told you about it earlier," Green too happily explains under that matter-of-fact tone. "You suffer being a human being for a day, and then you can go back to being a wild— whatever. I don't care." He takes out a pair of jeans from a rack, legs thinner than Red's arms, and holds them out, actually dressing them _on_ Red with a critical eye.

Red drills him with an indignant glare. Green ignores it completely, throwing the jeans at him before walking off to where most of the t-shirts line the back wall, getting ready to do the same thing again.

"I don't have to go, you know," Red points out sullenly. Green looks him in the eye for the first time that morning, exasperation digging into his features. But it’s just for a moment, before he goes back to offering the hanging shirts as much kindness as he has him.

"If there's one thing I know about you Red, you like a challenge,” Green says, voice slightly stern. “If I didn’t think it was worth your while, what, you really think I’d drag you out at 10AM _clothes shopping_ like I’m your mom? Sounds like a _great_ time,” he ends with a lift of his eyes.

Red’s mouth opens, then closes. Opens again—and closes again. And then he finally gives up, shoulders slumping. It sounded so ridiculous, but somehow _not_ at the same time. Sure, Green could’ve just _told_ him to get some clothes (he wouldn’t have), and Green could’ve _told_ him it was important (still wouldn’t have)...

But here Green was, apparently being thoughtful. The gesture, as genuine as Green paints it, is a difficult one to swallow; especially since Red's sure some part of Green is still finding this _hilarious._ He might be enjoying this in secret. There was no telling with Green.

Red somehow manages to holds his tongue anyway, even when he sees the total cost of everything.

 

* * *

 

“Bienvenue, Marquis _Green Oak_!”

The château is everything out of one of his childhood fantasy videogames. They stand in a grand hall spanning longer and wider than the Indigo League’s Champion room, chandeliers hanging dangerously from above with a mural painted a hundred years earlier or more across its ceiling. Polished wood furnishings hand-crafted decorate the very sides of the room, and a floor that promises to show every imperfection of the person who looks down reflects at Red’s feet.

All pristine, perfect, and waiting to get utterly decimated by the wrong types of trainers.

Red stands awkwardly as high-fashioned society gathers at his back, more to be found on the other end where a woman stands expectantly, hand on hip. He notices the long sprawl of her hair first, reaching down her back. And then, what he wishes he didn’t, the length of her legs unconcealed by a summer yellow skirt that matches her business jacket.

Miss Great Legs, waiting for her victim. Red reaches to tug on his hat instinctively, but gets pulled suddenly by an arm wrapping across his shoulders.

" _Hey!_ Quel est le problème, Green?" The girl calls, and Red tries to stare at Green quizzically in what space he has to move. But Green gives him another tug at the shoulder, throwing him off balance, trapping him against his arm.

"Rien,” says Green. “Mais tu devrais combattre ce mec à la place."

"Eh?"

There’s gasps all around them, melting into chatter. " _Monsieur Green_ ," speaks one of the butler figures.

"Oui, oui, je sais, je sais. Croyez-moi."

Red grimaces, lost even more than the voices around him, discomfort growing by the second. And he remembers he doesn’t _have_ his hat. Of all the public gatherings to agree to take it off for.

Green goes on, oblivious to the situation. "Bien? Je vais me porter garant pour lui. Ce gars est un champion."

"D'accord,” Miss Legs seems to say in some sort of agreement. “Mais je prends ton pokémon s'il perd.”

Green scoffs. "Comme si!”

Red gives in and stomps Green’s foot without remorse.

" _Ow!_ What—" There’s a sharp elbow jabbed into his side in retaliation, before Green shoves him out, feet squeaking on the varnished floor.

"Kick her ass and don't lose, alright?"

Red glares at his back, having half the mind to go and kick _his._ But he looks back to where the girl waits, a mauve-decorated pokéball in hand, fierce eyes settled waiting for him. There’s a curve at her lips, devilish and cool that’s hard to ignore.

Nights before creep up in him like a bad aftertaste. But Red removes a ball from his belt, tipping his head, bangs giving him the cover his hat can’t. He gives the woman his silent agreement with it.

They throw each ball, the sweet song voice of a clefable gracing the pokémon’s entrance as Pikachu sparks at his cheeks.

* * *

 

"I changed my mind. I want _his_ pokemon." She turns to Red, toying a pokéball between her hands. "What do you say?"

Red is only half-listening to the pair, unable to tear himself away from the rest of the room and the aftermath of their battle. Both chandeliers now sprawl out on the floor like spilled glass, some of which might be ice, a good amount of the furniture broken, and when did they smash that window?

"You never give it up, do you,” Green pipes up beside him, sighing dramatically. He puts a hand on Red’s shoulder, giving him a tug to listen.  "Red, Blue. Blue, Red. Since _she's_ not going to give you it anytime soon."

Red blinks, and he stares at her now, in a new way, unable to keep himself from going: "Really?"

"Really!" she chimes.

If anything was rare, it was another person with a colour-themed name in the same fashion as his and Green’s. He met a Violet or two in Unova, and an Amber in Hoenn, but did Amber actually count?

"And so I came to Kalos because I heard they have a stone to evolve one of my pokémon, and—” Blue waves out her hands and fingers on each side “— _ta-da._ "

Naming traditions were far from Blue’s mind. She had slipped between both him and Green as they exited the château, a position they still kept while she managed to keep a lead. Where to, Red didn’t know, but he’d agreed with her assessment at the time that it was better _outside_ than _in,_ and Red wasn’t one for details.

The Green of the present rolls his eyes. "No one asked for your life story, Blue."

"Red was interested. Weren't you?" She searches for his support, but returns to Green before he can offer it. "Are you feeling left out, _Greeeen?_ ”

" _As if,_ " Green scoffs. She reaches for his hand with hers, which he smacks it away, so she just changes her plan and links their arms, along with hers and Red’s as well.

"Don't worry, you're as charming as ever to me,” she reassures. “Even if you hid behind your friend."

"I did _not_ —" Green attempts to pull away, the motion rocking Blue’s arms all the way on Red’s side, but to no real avail: she doesn’t even stumble. She just keeps on chattering, as usual. "I want to go into Lumiose, so we can battle then. _And_ you can treat me when I win."

 _"Why_ do I put up with headaches like you two again?" Green groans.

"Because I'm great in every way? And,” she adds coquettishly, “you like my legs."

Red’s feet stutter under him, and Blue stops, keeping him from being yanked by her hold. He shakes his head at the noise of concern she makes, picking back up his pace, gaze down on the ground; thinking of nothing but dirt and digletts and caves far away, every tunnel system they’ve made around the world.

"Don't make Red blush,” Green says mockingly, to which Blue goes, "Oh?", curiously.

Caves so far, far— so _desperatel_ y far away.

The rising hill to Red’s side gives way to a high stone wall, river birch trees peeking up and over, with a few berry trees squeezed in, and the ground they past pasted red and purple with crushed fruity guts. Red lifts his head, Blue still chattering on as she leads them through gates pushed open wide and welcoming. A stocky man walks across the large yard in company of a roserade, a larger orchard at the back, while two people come out from a wooden cabin. A sign hangs from rough rope with a basket of berries illustrated into the wood, and then some name Red’s never read before.

Blue breaks apart their chain when she takes them inside, the door chiming when it opens. The interior is sweet and oaky, a mixture Red isn’t expecting. Blue and Green stick together, while Red takes the opportunity to feign interest elsewhere.

They’re shoulder to shoulder, Blue’s voice rising incredulously, Green playing innocent, Blue hitting his arm, “ _Green!_ ”, and laughing freely.

And Red’s on the other side, staring blankly at jars of jam and dried snacks for pokémon, hampers with wood shavings cushioning selected goods. In reality, he’s wondering: just what exactly it is he thinks he’s doing, his shoulders growing stiff and his jealousy gnawing at his stomach with a need to win a fight that doesn’t exist.

When he looks over again, Green’s touching her shoulder, head angled towards hers in private conversation. Heat rises up his skin, his hands clenching.

Red grants himself some mercy and exits outside, ridding himself of the sickening mixture of wood and berry, his own embarrassing position of a third wheel. It doesn’t cling to him any less, but distance makes the air fresher, and it’s a comfort before Blue swings her legs out the door, singing his name like an old friend.

“I’ll call you when I get into Lumiose.” She makes a phone motion to her mouth and ear with her hand, then turns it into a wave. “Bai-bai! Don’t forget!”

She looks like a different woman from behind, no less good-looking, no less attractive. Red watches her absentmindedly, turning her back into a golden blur as his vision loses focus, a summer’s sun. Green prods him back to his senses with an elbow sharp against his, a sarcastic drawl.

"You can say bye _back_ like a normal person, you know."

Red shrugs, making a face to go with it, just to keep it from reading too apathetic. Green doesn’t chastise him again, but Red senses it as they start to walk towards Lumiose, a bag now crinkling from Green’s wrist.

“Well?” Green asks before long. “What did you think?”

“Of what?”

“Of what—hello, _Blue_?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“‘Yeah’?”

“Nice legs.”

“Nice legs—” Green begins to sputter indignantly.

“Yours are better,” Red cuts in, flat.

And the indignation slams to a screeching halt, as well as Green’s feet. Red puts to practice his ability look nowhere but forward, ignoring the rest of the world.

“You’re checking me out?” Green recovers, incredulously, but not a note of it serious.

“What if I am."

“Gee, I didn’t know you were after me _and_ Pidgeot.”

Red doesn’t have the wit to push the joke along any further, and loses his chance when Green gives him a slap on the shoulder.

“C’mon, for real. You liked her, right? I saw you out there; you weren’t thinking about anything else but winning. And I’ve gotta say...”

Something touches his back—a hand, sliding across his shoulders, fingers wrapping around the curve and giving a light squeeze. “You don’t look so bad either, when you make the effort.”

Green slips the words like honey into his ear, the fact they’re walking be damned, his breath tickling his skin and turning it warmer despite every pushback Red’s mind gives. It’s a joke, nothing more; and Red knows he should be batting Green off, be ready to answer, but he isn’t. There’s only one retort back in his mind. A dare. A want.

_Then why don’t you touch me._

But he won’t say it, no matter how heavy it sits in his throat.

The hand drops from his shoulder a second before Red pushes Green off, picking up his pace.

 

* * *

 

The routes from their position and Lumiose a little over two hours to walk, Green decides to take the quick way back into the city, while Red opts to continue along the road the long way, to give Charizard a break.

It’s not entirely an excuse, despite the one it sounds like. “It wasn’t easy, getting back to the city,” he tells Green’s raised eyebrow, and it’s true. The flight between Dendemille’s mountains and the city of fashion was a strenuous one with the speeds she took and with a lack of real direction, and Red doesn’t feel her, resting a hand over her pokéball. It’s quiet, but not cold, and he moves his hand away to let her rest.

Green just shrugs, distracted as he hops onto Pidgeot’s back. “Don’t forget you left your stuff at my place.”

Pidgeot shrouds Red in his shadow, and then they’re gone, becoming a speck he can’t discern between the lofty clouds and lavender sky before long.

Time apart from Green was what Red was looking for, but not the silence that comes with it. Luckily, Pikachu is awake considering the beatdown he received from Blue’s ninetails. He yawns occasionally, preferring Red’s shoulder to walking on his own feet, but Red obliges to being transport, happy just to have the uncomplicated company.

Distractions come more willingly their way the closer they get to the city; more than they’ve ever had on the road before, trainers brandishing their pokéballs, a challenge indistinguishable in any language. They take on the first five without complaint, but then turn away the others, Pikachu’s exhaustion returning regardless of the easy matches, or because of them.

By the time they reach Lumiose’s borders, twilight has filled its skyline, Pikachu snoring lightly in his arms.

The pokémon wakes to the faint smell of food, a small snack of a cold glazed pastry that stick flakes to Red’s fingers as he tears at it to share. It’s dry and sweet at the same time, too late to get anything fresh. They eat quietly, a chilly air brushing by them occasionally.

It numbs slightly at Red’s cheeks, but the clothes Green chose — a button shirt over over a normal tee, jeans that fit snug around his legs — keep him from freezing better than his short-sleeved vest would’ve. Red rubs a thumb along the soft fabric, some kind of cotton, but fluffed; he doesn’t know how else to describe it, in plaid colours of red and black.

It’s not so bad, he admits. It’s not flash or pompous or strange, and it warms the miserable pit his stomach has become, that Green picked something he liked. _Today wasn’t bad,_ he also admits, but he’s found a way to paint it tense and complicated; as if he needed any more of that when it came to Green. He hadn’t even thanked Blue for the battle, and it was the least she deserved.

A small paw pats at Red’s chest, a blurred wheatfield yellow coming into focus, two wide eyes peering into his in question.

“Pii?”

There’s crumbs on Pikachu’s face. Red laughs faintly, brushing them away with a sticky thumb.

“I’m fine,” he reassures, rolling off the sugar and new strands of fur now stuck to his hand. His partner tucked in one arm and the mess in the other, he throws the plastic in the trash, suggests in a brightened voice, “How about we find something to do?”

A new distraction, to waste more time. Pikachu responds positively, and they search aimlessly, the late night streets better on Red’s mood than the busier afternoons.

There isn’t much open — nothing anyway he can imagine himself interested in, or Pikachu —, not even the pokémon gym. But what is, is its exterior, lit up like a star and peeling Pikachu out of his hold, hopping to regard the towering piece in awe. A collection of people are crowding it, lining the stairs to reach its heights.

“There?” Red asks. Pikachu squeaks with more life than he’s shown since the château, and so Red allows it, calling him to keep close when the attendant gives him wary glances, Red quick to purchase the cheapest of the tickets.

It grants them access halfway, but when Red shows off his ticket to get higher at a roped off section of stairs, the staff member shakes their head. Another employee calls to Red with eyes and gestures on Pikachu, who wanders between peoples’ feet and _ooh_ ing at the flashy lightbulbs climbing all the way to the top, cheekpads glowing. Red urges him up onto his shoulder, a hand in his fur to barricade him from the world and to keep him safe, and he moves briskly through the sea of people, out of sight.

They find some privacy, standing by one of the leg frames to look out at the city from. They’re only halfway up, but the sight is inviting nonetheless, skyscrapers acting as hilltops for a night-blue sky filling slowly with awakening stars, dotted in like an oil painting. It chips some at Red’s stubborn dismissal of the metropolis, if just a bit.

“It’s nice, isn’t it?”

_Pii._

“Today’s been nice, really.”

_Pii, pii!_

“Great legs— _Blue_ ,” he fixes quick with a flush, “s-she was a fun match too, right?”

_Pii? Pii, pii!_

“We can. I’ll ask Green later for her number.”

To a suggestive smirk, an unsubtle remark, most likely.

_You liked her legs more after all, huh?_

A lump lodges in Red’s throat.

“...Pikachu. Have you ever wanted to...”

... _get with someone? Kiss them? Have them...your arms...touching..._

Pikachu cocks his head, blinking cluelessly at his trainer. Red lets out a breath that blooms white, curling upon itself in the cold air. It splits apart as Red hangs his head.

What was he doing?

“Nevermind. It’s nothing.”

 

* * *

 

_@green: thanks for letting me know for once in your life you werent gonna be bugging me all night so i could lock the door_

_@green: where are you_

_@green: why am i even bothering_

 

_@red: what_

_@red: shut up_

 

_@green: oh so you DO look at your messages huh_

_@green: miracle_

 

_@red: i thought someone important mssged me_

 

_@green: fuck you_

 

_@green: dumbass_

 

_@red: are you lonely_

 

Red waits, but the beeping stops, the pokégear falling into a predictable silence on the porcelain of the wash sink. He looks back to the mirror, his reflection a sorry state in yesterday’s clothes, dark circles claiming home under his eyes.

He turns on the faucet again, tipping his head into the tepid water a second time.

All other hostel-goers have left before him save one, a few more minutes to spare until the cleaners are due to come, and when they’ll have to leave. Red searches for an old message from Kris with her schedule (just like Green had said: sent the next day from their battle), but it’s blocked up until later in the afternoon, leaving him to look for other avenues, if he was going to stay in the city.

Great. Because he was so good at doing that.

What notes he has left in his wallet afford breakfast for himself and his pokémon, and he forgoes grabbing his bag at Green’s and makes for the roads outside Lumiose, where even his two day old clothes grab the same interest as yesterday. He makes enough cash to ensure lunch, and to stop the irritable lines on Snorlax’s forehead from multiplying, with easy win after easy win doing little to amuse the pokémon.

“We can buy a cake now,” Red offers, and it satiates Snorlax for the time.

But the problem is that lunch is three hours away, with boredom making it feel like six. Snorlax yawns when the third trainer in a row with an electric-type fails to paralyse him in a way that does more than tickle his belly. He decides, as their opponent done-up in his best blue suit — or his everyday-wear, given how rich he looks and the fact he’s even wearing out — takes out his next pokéball, to leave what’s become Red’s makeshift battle spot and to flop next to him.

The ground stutters, and Snorlax sprawls out his limbs. A few seconds after, snoring begins to sound.

Red stares at the great lump through a half-lidded gaze, wondering if he should care, or see the act as defiant. Huh.

“Blah blah blah blah?” says the young man in peevish Kalosian.

Red shrugs, unfolding his arms tucked across his legs, pulling out, hmm— Lapras, apparently, as she appears in the flesh. They beat out the challenger’s raichu and that should be that, but the man refuses to take the small walk up the hill to where Red sits, and try to deposit a few notes into Lapras’s mouth, who drenches them for the insult.

Probably about a good time to get an actual decent match, after that.

 

* * *

 

_@red: hey kris want to battle_

 

_@kris: Hey Red sorry! I’ve got W.E at a daycare today, all week actually. How about next week?_

_@kris: will talk about it later!_

 

_@red: ok_

 

* * *

 

Shit. Next option.

 

* * *

 

_@red: wanna battle_

 

_@red: green_

 

_@red: battle_

 

* * *

 

_Double shit._

Luck is taking a holiday.

 

* * *

 

After the miserable day, Red surrenders to sleeping at Green’s place that night, deciding Green can feed him for free for ignoring his texts. Green, with his nose firmly stuck in the air, feigns bullshit surprise for _ohhhh, did you text me? I didn’t know, I was out being_ **_busy_ ** _, unlike some people; speaking of busy, what were_ **_you_ ** _doing anyway_ , to which Red was fine tuning out, turning on the couch and pulling up his blanket.

He ignores the hand on his hip, the amused “I have a bed you can use, you know,”, both hovering on and over him for far too long before Green leaves with an exasperated sigh.

The biggest problem the next day comes when Red decides he can’t do yesterday _again_ , which leaves him with drastically little to do. He gives in and goes through the electric-type gym’s quizzes (read: ignores) and has, to the gym leader’s credit, the first decent match in the last two days. He declines the badge, but carries the good buzz from the match over to Sycamore’s lab, where he drops off his more recent notes with the professor.

And then he realises the worst—he has nothing else to do. The buzz doesn’t so much deflate as it crashes, and hard.

Kris’s schedule is packed. Green is doing who-knows-what.

It’s bad when Snorlax scowls at him at him as a returning-opponent sends back their magneton in disappointment. _What the hell are we doing,_ his look implies. Red drops his head pathetically, avoiding his gaze.

_I don’t know._

Whatever it is, he gets away with it until after lunch in a Lumiose park, throwing away more plastic than was ever meant for the small public trash can. He gives a small cough, straightening his back as he regards his pokémon to announce tentatively: “So…the west route now?”

Red isn’t really paying attention when Snorlax stands. He knows he does—because _that_ would be hard to miss—but he doesn’t think about it, even as he approaches. Red’s inquiring look isn’t what it should be, and his “huh? H-hey!” not all that alarmed when he’s picked up at the collar. Sometimes, it’s kinda cool to get manhandled by an oversized pokémon once in a while.

Like _oh, neat_. 

So it’s a fun little ride when Snorlax carries him to the lake, pausing by the edge. Lapras is floating nearby, watching them, and Red thinks for a second, oh, he’s just getting them ready to go. Great.

But then Snorlax hoists him up higher, over the water, and it clicks — just as he sees the reproachful look in Lapras’s eye, directed right at him.

Red doesn’t even get to flail before he sinks in, head and all.

 

* * *

 

“ _Red?_ ”

Red doesn’t acknowledge the bewildered voice or the owner of it; he simply pushes against Green and the crack in his doorway, every inch of him slogging, and sludging.

“Get out of the way,” Red grunts, “or I’ll soak you too.”

Green doesn’t need telling twice; he already backed off, leaving Red to make a trail to his shower room, the door thudding shut behind him.

When Red re-emerges, a towel around his hip and searching for his backpack, he hears Green call him from the bedroom. As soon as he drags himself into the room, a pair of trousers get thrown at his chest.

"Can you fit into those? I'm still looking for a shirt I don't care sacrificing to your insanity."

Red bundles up the legwear with one hand, the other holding his towel in place. "What am I going to do to a _shirt?_ ”

“Turn it into scrap bandages?” Green guesses.

Red rolls his eyes. Maybe he should. He sits on the bed for the time being, waiting as Green digs into the closet, clinking hangar after hangar—not once asking him the smart thing of if, you know, he already has clothes to wear.

So Red happily watches him, inwardly smug.

"Daisy would do this too,” he says helpfully.

"I am _not_ being a Daisy,” comes the correct response.

"What's wrong with being Daisy?" Red asks innocently. Green shoots him a glare, Red fixes him a smile, and he goes back to making the hangars hiss. The sound is comforting, but so is the sight of Green, crowned along the edge of him in a soft light of the day coming in through the window beside him.

Would be even better if he was wearing clothes right now, though. Red covers his chest with an arm awkwardly, but drops it quickly, chiding himself.

Settle, Red. Don’t make this anything weird.

"What's been up with you, anyway?” Green’s voice interrupts the peaceful ambience, the noise of the day outside and the shuffling of clothes an added acoustic. “You were grumpy for a guy who got the match you did. Blue thought she said something wrong when _you_ didn’t say a peep.”

Red’s rolls his tongue inside his mouth, the edges pinching, and looks at the ground. Green takes something out from the wardrobe, then shoves it back in. "Did your pokemon finally get sick of you moping around and dunk you in the lake again? ...Alright, time for the silent treatment,” he mocks, when Red doesn’t respond.

Green’s toes enter his vision, and he gets a “Heads up” before Green throws him a shirt, nearly landing at his feet before he grabs it. Red drapes it over his lap, meaning to fold them and the trousers together so he can pick them up in one hand. But he catches Green standing there, looking at him.

He feels the urge to shrink into himself, out of sight. But he doesn’t move.

“Kalos not shaping out to be all your thought it would? Would’ve helped if you learned the language first.”

“Kalos is fine.”

“So what?”

“ _What_ so what?”

“Are you really gonna do that?”

“Really do what?”

Green groans, muffled by a hand over his mouth that after drags downward. He follows it with a sigh, and his feet crunch lightly on the soft carpet, a pinprick of a sound. Quieter than when he sits, the mattress pressing in under his weight, settling in next to Red.

“I’m trying to be _nice_ , you know,” Green says. He’s about a hand’s reach away, Red’s aware, but he isn’t about to test how true that is.

“Yeah. It’s weird.”

“It wouldn’t be weird if you just _talked_.” The words sound like teeth on teeth, a limit close to being reached. That’s fine; it’s a satisfying power to have over someone, makes Red glad his throat is so naturally inflexible when it comes to giving Green what he wants.

“You used to hate it when I did.”

It’s stubborn, petty, and helps nothing, but there’s a hollow satisfaction to it.

The worn exhale Green lets go speaks volumes before he does.

“Yeah, and you’re just as bad when you don’t, too. Fine.” Green shifts beside Red, bringing into his line of vision a folded elbow, fingers peeking over the arm. “You gonna stay like that all night?"

It doesn’t feel like a win, but Red will mark it down as one.

"What if I did,” he replies, without much thought to it. Green scoffs, but Red begins rolling the clothes together in one hand, noting how stiff the fingers holding the towel around him have become. A leg knocks against his, pressing along it, curling around its curve—

Red stops everything, but sees—it’s a hand, pulling up small creases into the towel, resting on the inside of leg, just above his knee.

"Do you want to?" Green asks.

A question. A joke. Red’s lips part by a fraction, then nothing more. All his inner mechanisms have shut down—everything important from answering, to reacting properly, made secondary to all the wrong responses. Instead, he’s too aware of the foreign skin on his, the slight weight of Green’s hand; how his heart has constricted in his chest, and the awkward, ugly way it’s begun to beat; how his mind says _please_ , at the same time he tells himself, _answer him_ —but he doesn’t. The hand doesn’t move, and it feels like forever.

And then, it does: further up.

Red finds muscles still left in his body to tense.

It slips under the towel completely, moving in slowly; in line with his vision, but just below what he can detail. But want quickly overrules embarrassment, and he lets his gaze shift, ignoring the vague profile of a face in the corner of his sight.

The knuckles of the hand graze against the fabric, a tease to what his skin can tell him far better. Beneath, the hand isn’t coy about taking a hold of him, fingers flexing around more comfortably, and then stroking gradually along the length that’s there. A shudder runs through Red, watching, feeling; the embarrassing knowledge of growing harder in that hand, and the fact that he wants to.

He nearly misses the bed dipping beside him, but not the nose brushing his cheek, the lips that follow, pressing down softly.

“ _Red_ ,” Green breathes on his skin, softer—his voice, the kiss—than he would’ve ever imagined. At least his fantasies knew well the way Green’s words would sink into his body. But then, maybe anything would with a hand around his cock, working at making the idea of inching his legs open a little more acceptable than to stay frozen, disbelieving, (and something else, like fear).

But there’s a question in his name, that or a request. While his inhibitions were willing to let go in some regards, with others, he still struggled to respond, despite the small noises now catching in his breath. Still, he tries; angling his head stiffly in Green’s direction, but his chin kept dipped, gaze on his lap before he’ll bring it on another pair of eyes—great priorities.

It must be enough, because Red finds Green’s lips are damp when they touch his, damper than they had been before, and linger longer on his mouth than they did his cheek. Green lifts his chin with the angle he moves their mouths, and there, a feverish urge finds its way into Red’s lips. He presses them harder, his free hand searching clumsily for Green’s leg, then higher up, his shirt, his chest, his hips wiggling needily, despite the attention already below.

And then there’s a tug, and Red’s eyes shoot open as the towel falls from his loosened grip. Green pushes him back onto the bed at the shoulder before Red can muster more than noise from his throat, and Green’s straddling him, blocking out the light from behind with his back. It doesn’t mask the look in his eyes however, the curve of his lips lifting into a smirk.

He straightens just to pull off his shirt over his head, discarding it somewhere on the floor.

“Let’s do this properly, yeah?”

Red shoots him a defiant look as his mouth clamps down tight, or so he tries, but he feels the muscles on his face fail at making any of it work. Defiance doesn’t work very well either, when he’s grabbing at Green’s arms, reaching for his shoulders to bring him down.

Green chuckles airily, before sinking back into Red’s mouth.

 

* * *

 

 

In the low light of the morning, Red watches Green with the covers pulled up to his chin, lips pressed in a tight line. Green’s nothing but a shoulder poking out, a mess of orange-y, chestnut hair, the nape of his neck strangely compelling whenever his eyes lingers on it.

It makes him think about gestures that make his stomach taut. But—what if he moved in closer to that back, gave a kiss, maybe, to that neck; and what if he wrapped an arm around that body, holding it quietly, without argument or reason asked of him.

But Red knows it won’t go like that. So, he doesn’t dare.

He just lays there, thinking about those impossibilities, tending to gestures and affections more suited to his pokémon—until Green turns, sighing comfortably, and then actually, _actually_ _for real,_ opens his eyes.

Their eyes lock.

"Hey,” Green says sleepily. Red’s brow creases, uncertainly.

"It's early.” Meaning: _you shouldn't be awake._

"I had a good night,” Green replies, the early morning not losing him his self-satisfied tone. Red flushes with a scowl, and he swings out a foot to kick at Green’s legs. But Green catches it, trapping it between both of his, before he leans to wrap an arm around Red’s back, pulling them closer together.

"What's for breakfast?" he asks low and husky, as soon as their noses are inches apart. Red scowls even harder, ignoring the tingling to his skin, the marks where Green’s already been, the question of where he’ll be next.

" _Starve_ ," is his reply.

Green just laughs, and pulls Red into a kiss he doesn’t resist.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> During the chateau:
> 
> Blue: 'Hey! What's wrong, Green?'  
> Green: 'Nothing, but you should fight this guy instead.'  
> Blue: 'Eh?'  
> Green: 'Yeah, yeah, I know, I know. Believe me.'  
> Green: 'Well? I'll vouch for him. This guy's a Champion.'  
> Blue: 'Okay. I'm taking your pokémon if he loses.'  
> Green: 'As if!'


	8. Chapter 8

Cold air breathes out through the institute room, the source of it whittling in size, but not by much. Red drags in the familiar taste with each ragged breath, the sharp bite of ice on his tongue and frost on his teeth. From the other side, Blue stands with a hand lost in the snow-white fur of her abomasnow, her own exhaustion disguised by Red’s inability to focus on the minute, the distance between them, and the immaculate way she composes herself.

It’s hard to catch any fatigue in her sing-song voice, the airy quality matching it well.

“Ohh, aren’t you more lively?”

It’s not an invitation. There’s teeth for it to be, but Red knows—is sure, possibly, maybe—that it’s not on purpose. It’s tempting anyway, when her gaze is captivating, her skills as well, and he would accept a rematch, if only they could.

His fingers flex and ball restlessly.

If only they could.

“—Where have you been all my life?”

But they’re not that stupid, fortunately.

Outside the city and sat on the green grass, Blue wraps an arm around his entirely, resting the tip of her head on his shoulder. The end of summer is bringing a chiller weather to the air, but the grass beneath them is pleasant to the touch, and Blue’s insistence on their close proximity keeps them warm. Or it does Red, anyway.

“You need to join the château officially,” Blue goes on. “Or just come with me! Are you doing anything important here _anyway?_ ”

“Uh…”

Venusaur breathes heavily, close to a contented snore, at his other side.

In quick progression, Red has learnt easy lessons about Blue: that she loves to touch, talk, tease, and sound ready to whisk you off to wherever she pleases at any second. The latter may be due to the way her voice hitches when she asks a question, and Red knows she can’t be serious (maybe, probably, _realistically_ ), but it gives him pause each time.

“I’m training...in Mega Evolution,” he finally musters out, the slow delivery embarrassing. But Blue doesn’t delay or question its validity.

“You can come do that with me.”

Was she actually serious?

“It’s for a professor here.”

“Boring!” Whining the word, Blue removes her head with pinched displeasure, but doesn’t unravel their arms. “Everyone’s so cute in Lumiose, but I can’t stay for long. I get an itch in my feet, y’know?” She inserts a fun little wiggle of her sneakers. “Lucky for us though, I’m here ‘til the end of the week, so we can battle again tomorrow. Maybe later today?”

She settles her eyes on him, smooth and caramel, and he’s distinctly aware of how unused he is to people being so close. Or was it just something about her?

He averts his gaze to concentrate nonetheless.

“I’ll see what I’m doing,” he promises.

 

* * *

 

Green presses his lips to the space above Red’s collarbone, dragging them along the skin with little to no pressure. All he gives are kisses too soft to appreciate, the trail of his damp breath lingering longer.

“You should stay in with me,” he mumbles between them, and every rejection dies in Red’s throat. Green has his back flattened to the fridge door, the glass of juice that had been in his hand stolen by fingers knocking his, then finding the countertop with a clink.

Green finishes with soft pecks by Red’s temple, then brings himself into view, the crooked end of his smile all that Red can see under his own nose. He shifts his hips into Red’s, giving him nothing, but the heat spreads across Red’s skin all the same.

“Well?” Green whispers, taunting him. His eyelids dip, gaze falling down to his mouth. “What do you sa—”

Red can’t deny him an answer, but sure as hell can stop him from finishing, slipping his tongue between the space of his opened, annoying mouth. It doesn’t stop a laugh vibrating off their teeth, but it distracts him, the both of them, hands scrambling at belts and buttons to the living room couch.

That’s where it begins, but not where it finishes.

“Alright. if you keep distracting me, I’m going to get behind.”

They end up on the bed, Green creaking the springs as he finally convinces himself to rise. Red looks away when Green stands exposed, but gives up on the false modesty a moment later.

“It’s your fault,” Red points out, vaguely remembering something or other about an appointment, but failing to feel any guilt. He rubs his shoulder into the mattress, appreciating the warmth of their bodies still trapped in the blanket he pulls up.

“I can’t help being this irresistible,” Green replies, arching his back in an exaggerated, delayed stretch before reaching for his shirt. Red rolls his eyes, but watches the display anyway, chewing on his already swollen lip. But before long, Green is booting up his laptop and sliding into a chair, his back to Red. A silence begins to settle over the room, the empty length of the bed becoming cold and boring as he lays in it, alone.

So Red finally slips out, dressing into his boxers before approaching where Green sits, just for somewhere to be. He’s seen Green’s work desk plenty of times, usually a collection of books, pokémon magazines, his laptop, and a couple of deodorants sitting at the back. He’s flipped through the books sometimes, finding one magazine on grooming that appeared to be just an excuse for cute photos than anything useful.

(“I send it to my sis,” Green had told him, refusing eye contact.)

This time though, as his gaze wanders the tidy mess, Red spots a small cluster of stones near the deodorant cans. He picks one up, turning it over in his hand.

Oh.

“Are these the ones from Ambrette?”

Green pokes his head up. “The ones there were _something_ ,” he says. Green then leans against the table, reaching out for one of the smaller ones, letting its grooves be hit by the daylight from the window for a moment before passing it over. “This one’s yours.”

Red takes it, plopping down the other onto the side, and moves to get a better spot in the light.

“Was it something?”

“Yup — fossilised leaf,” Green replies.

_Holy shit._

Which it pretty much looks like (a leaf, not shit), not a kabuto’s foot or aerodactyl’s claw, and not even like a leaf from a bellsprout, or oddish. But Red doesn’t care, feeling the edges of the fossilised stone as his lips curl into a smile that matches his pride.

The dig was awkward now a little to remember, but there was something fond in thinking back on it. Red chuckles, looking back to Green, who’s already watching at him. He forces his prized possession back into Green’s hand.

“This reminds me. Don’t drop it.”

Green takes it, but he’s already back to fiddling around with his laptop by the time Red returns from the entranceway, his bag a dug in mess. He keeps his hands behind him.

“Close your eyes and hold out a hand.”

Green looks up from the screen, raising an eyebrow. “What?”

“Do it.”

“Is this how it’s going to be now with us?”

Red waits. Green finally gives up, and — after first boring into Red his amusement for the act — holds out his hands, smiling with his tongue pressed into his cheek.

When he opens them again, the amusement has left: replaced by a small ornament, dangling off a chain and ring.

“A keyring?”

“From the aquarium. I kept forgetting to give it to you when we went. It’s your little guy.”

Red points to the attached trinket, smooth as a pebbled, with a round mound dented with tiny ridges  poking out along the top.

“My _'little_ _guy’_.” Green can hardly get it out over a laugh. He lets it dangle from the ring for a second, then catches it in his palm, shaking his head as he faces his work-desk again. “Dork.”

“You’re welcome.”

* * *

 

Surprisingly, Green puts the keychain on his apartment door key. Red doesn’t notice it until they’re going out to eat one night, because when it comes to Green, eating out or ordering take-in is better than using the kitchen he has available to him.

For a guy that’s lived a life around a kitchen more than him, it’s strange how little he utilises it.

“Why don’t you cook more?” Red asks him that same night.

“Why would I when I can get people whose job it is to cook to do it?”

“So you can’t cook at all?”

“I can cook if I _wanted_ to— do you want me to cook for you, or something?”

“ _Can_ you?”

“What’s with that voice? Look, we’re already going out now. Bug me another time.” Green pushes back his hair, ruffled by the breath of air that hits them as they exit the complex. “I know your brain’s in your stomach,” he laughs, “but I didn’t expect you to suddenly get at me about my _cooking_ capabilities.”

Red shrugs his shoulders.

“I was curious, that’s all.”

The truth was, Red was still doing the ‘figure out Green’ thing he was attempting before. Apparently, acknowledging the way he took an interest in Green’s face wasn’t the end-all to his curiosity in him, and the sex since hadn’t magically made him understand Green any better.

Red’s still not sure _why him_ , but he’s fine with making sure that Green has no doubts about _yes, him._

Regardless, he’s glad—as annoying as Green can be—about the former, and wouldn’t have minded the cheat with the latter. This new activity in their relationship provides him with an excuse to be around, and not just with Green’s hand around his dick.

(But he doesn’t mind that.)

Green’s asked him to stick around for a while. Red acceped, but only after explaining the snorlax in the room, and the situation that got him half naked in Green’s bedroom in the first place.

“Why didn’t you just ask me?” had come Green’s reply, naturally stated. “You _do_ know you can go into the institute without Kris or me, right?”

Red had stared at him.

“...isn’t it just a school thing?”

Green had started laughing about there, and informed him, no, not a school thing, and no, really, seriously, Red? You’ve never been to an institute?

I’ve been to a _frontier._

Practically the same thing, buddy.

—simply put, Red now had a better flow of challenges to help him through the downtimes, and Green’s insistence for him to be around when he didn’t have schoolwork gave Red a good enough reason to be there.

So, learning about Green it was.

 

* * *

 

If he wrote out what he knew, it would probably go something like this:

 

**A List of Observations About Green**

(or something like that)

 

  1. His name is Green
  2. but he's not green
  3. rarely ever see him in green. Maybe when we were kids?
  4. okay fine serious list
  5. his face is his most annoying feature, especially when he smiles
  6. passionate battler
  7. can be nice (I guess)
  8. but in that ‘I’m telling you what to do or giving you what I think you need’ way
  9. (he’s bossy)
  10. yeah yeah I know he’s let me crash at his place for free, whatever
  11. he picks good deodorant
  12. still hides snacks in the bedside drawers
  13. _He wears glasses???_



 

_It’s true._

 

Red returns to the apartment one day with Machamp trailing behind him from an agreed to shopping trip (Charizard doesn’t like tiny elevators, and Snorlax can’t be trusted to carry food), and he finds Green sprawled out on the couch. He has his face in that reading device of his, his laptop on the coffee table, and a cord leading from it to his ears.

And a pair of glasses on his face.

He gets away with staring for a while at the sight—slim, bottom framed glasses, a light-brown coloured rim to match his hair, and damn, he looks good in that button-up shirt—before Machamp shuffles past to stand where he suspects his trainer might see him, the arms of goods all waiting to be told where to go.

Green looks up lazily—and startles the next second, blaring out poppy music from the laptop as his flailing yanks out the cord.

“Holy _shi—!_ Are you _trying_ to give me a heart attack!? When did you two get in?!”

He holds an arm of the glasses like he might take them off, but just sits the hand there by his temple, doing nothing but waiting, seemingly. Red’s torn between staring back at him and dealing with Machamp, but decides to compromise, sitting a carrier bag onto the kitchen island, instructing Machamp to do the same with one.

All the while keeping his chin plastered to his shoulder, looking over it. “When did you get the specs?”

“I— what do you mean?”

“...You have glasses on your face?”

“ _Yeah_ , so what?”

Red stares, hoping his bemused look will get the answer out of Green. It doesn’t, of course. So he goes for the next question he can think up, pointing to the bridge of his nose.

“Can you push them up your nose with your forefinger like nerds do in the movies?”

Green gives him a scowl. But then he moves his hand, poking out his middle finger as if to perform the act, but then flips him off instead.

_Rude._

Green takes the specs off while Red rummages properly now through the bags of pokémon snacks. He’s disappointed when he looks back, but intrigued too by the simple change.

“What about all those times you never used glasses before?” Red asks.”Aren’t they important for keeping your eyes safe?”

“My eyesight isn’t _that_ bad. They’re just…”

“Just what?”

Green waves a hand. “It’s not that big of a deal, alright? I forget them sometimes, is all. Don’t be a nag.”

Red frowns, but finds what he’s been looking for: a wrapped yellow cardboard-looking block, and Machamp’s reward for helping out. He unwraps the plastic before passing it over, and Machamp makes a delighted sound as he snaps off a chunk from the side, uninterested in the conversation taking place.

Which, speaking of that—“Oh, what if you got one of those chains old people use?” Red suggests.

A pillow comes flying his way, knocking into the shopping bags instead of his head.

Machamp gurgles happily, before taking another bite of his snack.

 

* * *

 

“Hey, Machamp… he looked pretty good in those glasses, right? Green?”

“Uuuu?”

“Oh, you know… just thinking aloud.”

 

* * *

 

Spending time with Green wasn’t the only new(-ish) activity he was trying, while in Lumiose. With Blue’s insistence of battling and friendship, that came with phone numbers exchanged, and a row of new text messages everyday.

 

Sometimes, he even started them:

 

_@red: so what do you do here?_

 

_@blue: kalos? train, travel, have fun. what else?_

 

_@red: what about in lumiose?_

 

_@blue: huh? all sorts!_

_@blue: like waste too much money_

_@blue:  ￣ヘ￣_

_@blue: cities are soooo expensive_

_@blue: btw green has room right_

 

_@red: room for what_

 

_@blue: room for another!_

 

_@red: oh_

 

_@red: im there_

 

_@blue: yeahh but_

_@blue: the couch or his bed?_

 

_@red: couch_

 

_@blue: so theres room on the bed_

 

_@red: arcanine sleeps with him_

 

_@blue: really? he never did that when i slept over_

_@blue: hmmmm_

_@blue: well i can be very persuasive you know_

 

_@red: do you still wanna battle tomorrow_

 

_@blue: changing the subject hmmmmm???_

_@blue: you bet i do_

 

_@blue: winner gets to sleep with green_

 

* * *

 

 

Confidence is the prominent emotion linked between himself and Blastoise. Desire, eagerness; it rattles under Red’s skin during their matches, and feeds the power supplied to Blastoise, causing a greater impact.

Red knows how to keep his head above the metaphorical water of Blastoise’s Mega Evolution. But today, with Blastoise standing fixed and all cannons aimed and trailing Pidgeot’s path to hit, throw him to the ground by the impact and to _beat them, this one’s important, this, more than every other—_

There’s a different sort of _pride_ in today’s match than is usually present, swimming the waters high inside his throat. Blastoise doesn’t mind it, feeding the need to win with giddy affirmation.

He has a personal point to make, in the only way he knows how. Green stands bewildered, retrieving the last of his pokémon.

“Alright already, you won! Geez, what did you take before battling today? I’m not _that_ out of shape…”

Red leaves outlines of the soles of his shoes by the puddles between him and Green, that giddy, restless energy making his pace quicker. He takes Green in the middle of some new complaint or whatever, an open mouth sealing his, their tongues bumping together in the immediate surprise. But Green then lets him in, sliding and tasting as his hands grab at his waist, the underside of his shoulder. Red keeps Green’s head cupped in his hold, even once he retracts his mouth, a strand of saliva dripping out.

“I _won_ ,” Red breathes, a smirk carved into his face. Green stares at him blankly, a three second delay to reality.

“Bwuh—”

Red silences him with another kiss, if not intentionally. But it tastes good on his mouth, and he breaks it just to whisper, moving his hand to the back of Green’s head and pressing their foreheads together:

“Let’s take this somewhere private.”

Green is a fluster of doubt and half-hearted concerns; but as the door of the bathroom stall locks and with Red on his knees, ringing his lips hungrily around his cock responding to the heat of his mouth, the first word he can muster out after all others die on a gasp is, “H- _hurry_.”

Red thinks then, he must understand Green’s enjoyment all the times before they’ve been together. Flustering him, asserting himself over him. Sense or proper concern about other people coming in is lost on him, and going for slow, drawn out drags of the length hardening in his mouth. He tastes salt on his tongue, and he wants more of it, soon.

But his easy disregard for all else does get a beating when someone _does_ come in, their positions switched. Red attempts to get his breathing under control while Green—and Red sees it the very moment he notices that look in his eye, and oh _god_ , this asshole _would—_

Red slaps a hand over his mouth, digging his fingers tighter in Green’s hair, closing his eyes from the rest of the world.

He still doesn’t regret the impulsive move, once they’re done.

 

* * *

 

  1. gives really really really good head
  2. _really_ like the glasses
  3. suck dick + wear glasses = ???



 

   

  1. (investigate)



 

* * *

 

He has less sexually charged ideas, once in a while.

One comes later that day during feeding time, Red watching the two half-circles the pokémon usually made in the backyard, but joined where Arcanine and Pikachu stood. Pikachu had brought over his bowl on purpose to join the fire-type, and Arcanine had welcomed his company.

Meanwhile from opposite ends, Rhyperior and Snorlax were exchanging looks and loud snorts and gruffs, goading with their attitudes. Tyranitar, maybe thinking some of it was directed at him, or maybe just feeling left out, bristles and snarls at Rhyperior’s side, and snaps his jaws when Blastoise throws a dried berry his way.

All the while with his tail wagging excitedly. It’s pretty cute to witness, he has to admit.

“Hey,” he pipes up at some point. “Want me to take the pokémon while you’re busy?”

“Huh?” Green looks from where he stands next to his exeggutor, spray bottle in hand. One of the heads wiggle at losing Green’s attention, while the other pair telekinesis food to their mouths.

“Your pokémon,” Red repeats. “To train.”

Green raises an eyebrow. “That thing we just _did?_ ”

“I mean when you’re busy with schoolwork.” Red tilts his head perched in his hands, elbows sitting rested on his knees. “It can’t be fun being cooped up in their balls when you’re studying,” he adds.

“I _don’t_ coop them up,” Green shoots back.

Red frowns. “I’m just saying. I spend all day at the institute… and your tyranitar looks really restless before a battle.”

Up goes both eyebrows this time, but not without a dry look of disbelief aimed straight at Red for the words that just came out of his mouth. Red stares right back with a dry look of his own. _Yes,_ he knows what tyranitars are like. Not the point.

Green turns away, looking past just Exeggutor and to the rest of the pokémon. He then rubs at the back of his neck.

“I don’t know if they’re going to _listen_ to you,” he finally relents, prodding his tongue into the side of his mouth. Red lifts his head, looking out at the crowd as well. Snorlax is reaching slowly over to a distracted Pikachu’s bowl, but Venusaur is already onto it, vines snapping around his arm to pull it back, a motherly chide following.

“That’s alright,” Red replies with a smile. “I manage with you.”

 

* * *

 

  1. passionate about learning
  2. still does that thing when he gets defensive over nothing
  3. ‘What are you trying to say????’
  4. What else? he’s always out or doing something for school, it was a compliment
  5. it’d be great if he battled more
  6. and if he took more trips



 

* * *

 

_@blue: does he have people around?_

 

_@red: dont think so_

 

_@blue: he never does!_

_@blue: at least youre there_

 

_@red: he has classmates_

 

_@blue: can he name any?_

 

_@red: he knows a girl called kris_

 

_@blue: because he knows kris from kanto like you!_

_@blue: do you know kris?_

 

_@red: we battle sometimes_

 

_@blue: ohhh_

_@blue: ask her about me and tell me if she looks like she's in love_

_@red: okay_

 

_@blue: really?! you will?_

_@blue: dont forget!_

_@blue: its a promise!_

 

_@red: okay_

 

* * *

 

Not all rooms inside the institute are the same on the surface, but in design, Red gets used to their boxed-in structure. Four metal walls, a roof you can’t immediately see at eye-level, a depository box for pokémon selection, or healing, by means of a panel by the doorway.

It’s effective in its purpose, and Red dismisses thoughts of being caged in. Battlers come, and so does his one other distraction from being in Lumiose that isn’t Green. With the added challenge of earning all of Green’s pokémon’s respect, it pushes the environment further out of his mind.

Rhyperior, Tyranitar, and Pidgeot have the highest of expectations of them all.They make this clear inside battles and out, always seemingly teetering on if to listen to him, or not. But they’re as competitive as they are loyal to Green, and concede to his commands.

Every time he gets to see the raised chin of Pidgeot, is met with Rhyperior’s cold shoulder to snacks offered and Tyranitar doing his best act at ignoring Red’s healing sprays and idle chatter, Red thinks he wouldn’t want it any other way.

Like trainer, like pokémon, huh.

“I like them,” he says to Venusaur one time, stroking the top of her head idly while the more prideful of Green’s pokémon kept defiantly to themselves. “Makes me think of the good old days. Everyone learning to be friends.”

She hums, low and pleasantly, cheek tipped to the side of his leg. Red chuckles behind his mouth.

“Yeah… I miss it sometimes too.”

 

* * *

 

  1. way too many shampoo bottles
  2. introduced me to Kris and Blue
  3. nice to wake up next to him



 

  1. sometimes



 

  1. and kiss
  2. and touch
  3. hate his smirk
  4. that one when he looks at me and knows he’s going to piss me off
  5. hate that i’m thinking about it now



 

   32. he has dumb bad tastes in apartments

 

* * *

 

Red can’t fathom the idea of being around a kitchen as often as Green is, and not using it to cook now and then.

So, Red does.

It’s a cheat, and he had to look up the recipe, following the directions to make what he hasn’t since he and Green were young at Daisy’s lead. The batter sticks to the pan, and attempts for cool flips make him thankful that Green’s in the bedroom, out of sight.

Green still stares at the piled mess shoved onto his plate with a knife and fork when Red calls (read: drags) him in, a jam jar with a spoon on the coffee table and a bottle of syrup handed over—once Red’s finished squeezing a modest portion over his own pancakes.

“Are you sure these aren’t going to kill me,” Green asks flatly, forking a broken piece up.

“I get your pokémon if they do.”

Green starts to move his plate onto the table, before Red kicks him for the joke. Luckily for Green, he doesn’t die when taking his first bite, or second, but makes it clear that Daisy’s are far better. Red hums, unable to disagree.

But now, with nothing else going on but pancakes and the achievement of not dying, it felt to Red the best time to bring up what’s been on his mind since he first came to Lumiose, still half-chewing a pancake:

“I dohn like yoh pardment.”

Green stares at him. “Say what.”

“I don’t like your apartment,” Red goes again, swallowing first.

“What’s wrong with it?”

“It’s boring.”

“It’s boring?”

“Boring.”

Green scoffs. “It’s _modern_.”

“It’s _rotten_ ,” Red says back. Green rolls his eyes, and Red decides, fixing on the plain, white wall furnished by a single bookcase straight ahead of him, “You could decorate.”

“I can’t redecorate a flat I’m _rentin_ _g_ , Red.”

Hmmm. “How about posters?”

“...Fine, we can put up one or two. But I pick.”

“We pick?”

“ _I_ pick.”

Red leans back into the couch, imagining the cheap tourist shops with Kalos flags printed as big of himself.

“Uh huh.”

Unfortunately, he has worst luck convincing Green to clean up in payment for the food, and figures out why he probably doesn’t cook often, scrubbing wrinkles into his fingertips.

 

* * *

 

 

  1. qualifies plain spaghetti cooked in pasta sauce out of a jar as cooking
  2. easy to wind up
  3. only reason to be in this city



 

* * *

 

They wake up, they have breakfast. They feed the pokémon, and then Green will do something for school, and Red will go to the institute, to see Kris or some other face. Red checks his texts from Blue, battles until lunch, then returns again after. Does this until dinnertime, or later. Wait for texts from Green. Follow his lead.

The days are different on the surface, but Red can see the similarities in each of them if he looks too close. So he does his best not to, tangling his body with Green’s every night, and then watching him sleep from his side of the bed in the early mornings, delaying the inevitable.

Plenty of people live their life like this. There’s no reason he can’t either, if just for a while. But Red can still sense it, feel it: how he’s becoming too aware of every corner of the room, the way the silence bears down when he’s alone; a gnawing displeasure for everything but Green’s face.

He chases off the thoughts with breakfast, putting together a plan to occupy him for the day.

 _Other people live like this too,_ he reminds himself.

 

* * *

 

  1. **_he wants to go camping_**



 

Or so Red’s ears translate _countryside_ and _stones_. But it turns out—with Red standing with his camping gear out from the PC box and ready the morning of—that Green already made reservations in a hotel, and that no, there was no need to set up a tent and sleeping bags and sleep under the stars regardless, in Green’s obviously correct opinion.

“Who takes out their camping gear before even getting to the town they’re going to anyway?” is one of Green’s many to come remarks, and Red looks at the backpack, and, true. But where Green had thought about trains and everything else a normal person does, Red had imagined travelling long roads, grass or stone underfoot.

The sentiment clings to him, as he watches the changing landscape from the window of their ride.

Regardless, the town itself provides the breath of fresh air Red was hoping for. It’s smaller than even his memories of Pallet Town, and the hotel they’re staying at has decor of how he imagines homes to be, simple and understated.

But Red doesn’t care to admire the furnishings, dragging Green away from hanging up his clothes to explore the tiny town—and, more importantly, the dirt-roads outside it.

Green is in his element, carrying a pamphlet and pointing out anything of note, which comes down to the stone monoliths and a two hundred year old business specialising in all types of cheese. They buy a hamper from the store, which convinces Green they need to get wine to go with it, _duh_.

The cheese shopping takes longer than cheese-buying should ever take. Red ends up leaving a Green engrossed in conversation with an employee eight minutes in, and Green doesn’t spare him a second look on the way out. It takes another five hours* for Green to finally emerge from the store, where in Red has contemplated ditching him for Hoenn’s shores twenty different times in his mind.

(*Or fifteen minutes, but it was the same length on his soul.)

“I thought we came here to look at _rocks_ ,” Red reminds Green miserably, trudging along with the hamper basket _he_ got stuck carrying. Green doesn’t even gift him with annoyance, instead looking as pleased as pie.

“We came all the way out here, and you don’t want to enjoy the local delicacies?” He scoffs. “Everything I do has a purpose, Red.”

Which sounds like mumbo jumbo, to Red. He doesn’t get to know what it means until they’ve finally begun exploring the stones that line Menhir Trail, Red taking out Venusaur and Pikachu for the walk. He thinks he sees Green frown about it, but who knows why he makes the faces he does.

But Red finally learns what Green had meant before when Green nudges at an open space of ground with a foot, then motions for Red to open the hamper while simultaneously thrusting the wine bag on him.

“What?”

“Well? Put them down, we ain’t got all day.”

Red puts both on the ground. From inside, under cheese and jars and even plastic-wrapped crackers, Green pulls out a large wedge of fabric—a picnic blanket, Red realises, when Green waves it out and spreads it across the grass. He then settles down on top of it, a smooth grin rising on his face.

“Le déjeuner?” he asks with a wheel of cheese in one hand and crackers in the other. Red can do nothing but stare under a heavy brow, torn between an urge to shove that stupid cool pose over, and also— something else, he can’t quite figure out.

Probably shove him again.

Red just plops down instead, rummaging through the rest of the cheeses, ignoring the strangely tight feeling in his chest. And Green too, when he can’t think up a single disparaging thing to say.

Green elbows at his arm, getting him to turn his head to throw him a dirty glare—and Green catches his lips with his.

 

* * *

 

_@blue: you had a picnic together at gsenges stone display??_

_@blue: are you SURE you’re sleeping on the couch_

 

_@red: yeah_

 

_@blue: FIIINE ill forgive him this time for not inviting me_

_@blue: im in couramine anyway_

_@blue: its great you should visit before it gets cold!_

_@blue: nice places for two not!dating people_

 

_were not dati_

 

The phone leaves his hands and a body presses to his back, a hand rubbing his chest. Red feels hair on his, a cheek to his cheek.

"Stop being a chatty gossip," Green mumbles close to his ear, pulling him back onto the bed.

 

 

They’re miles and miles away from Lumiose, and Red can feel it in how easy he sleeps at night.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

But when they return, the fact soon stiffens every muscle in his body.

 

 

 

* * *

 

  1. okay, it wasn’t camping
  2. investigated 16 though. need more data, will try again tomorrow
  3. would be fun to go on camping trips together
  4. he’d hate it. but that’s part of the fun
  5. really want to go camping



 

* * *

 

_@red: i asked kris about you_

 

_@blue: !!!_

_@blue: and??_

 

_@red: she looked angry_

 

_@blue: what??_

 

_@red: sulking angry_

 

_@blue: oh_

_@blue: the blushing kind??_

 

_@red: dont know but she said youre a good trainer_

 

_@blue: i know THAT_

_@blue: but!!_

_@blue: siigghh nevermind_

 

_@red: she knew you asked me to bring you up though_

 

_@blue: what!_

_@blue: did you tell her?_

 

_@red: i didnt_

_@red: but she was suspicious_

 

_@blue: ugghh well i guess it cant be helped_

_@blue: stupid smart cutie_

 

_@red: why dont you just ask her out_

 

_@blue: i have!_

_@blue: some people just take time_

_@blue: you know?_

_@blue: she doesnt like rushing into things and she takes everything seriously_

_@blue: in a good way!_

 

_@blue: anyway im fine with taking it slow_

_@blue: buuuuut_

_@blue: isnt she so cute to fluster??_

_@blue: (•‾⌣‾•) ̑̑♡_

 

* * *

 

“How can you tell if someone is in love?” Red asks one night, mind bumbling over topics and distractions and into Blue’s recent texts.

During the weekends, Green likes their food to come with alcohol, and then for their alcohol to come with more alcohol once they’re done eating. He talks easier these days about school and reports, advancements made in the scientific world, the latest studies. Red follows along with some of the discussion, but for the most part, he allows the energy in Green’s tone to carry him along.

If there’s anything he doesn’t get that Green expects a response to, staring at him usually gets a sigh of exasperation, and Red’s sure he loves to rattle away into details, no matter how he acts about it.

This night, Red’s burned the patterns of the table into his retinas, the noise of the restaurant louder than usual, blurring even with Green’s voice at times. There’s a wet ring where his last drink sat, or maybe the one before that.

Green wraps an arm around his shoulders, pulling it from his view with a tug to bring them closer together. “You don’t know?”

Red sighs, the alcohol on his breath thick, and he elbows himself free from the joke, slouching further into his seat. He doesn’t care about the answer anymore. He never really did.

 

He drinks more to turn it all into white noise in his ears.

 

* * *

 

  1. there’s something missing
  2. I don’t know what
  3. but I can’t shake it off



 

  1. is it in my head?



 

  1. this city



 

  1. this city tires me out



 

* * *

 

_@red: do you ever get bored_

 

_@blue: sometimes? then i fix it_

_@blue: are you bored?_

 

_@red: a little_

 

_@blue: take a trip!_

_@blue: anistar has a great battling scene_

_@blue: or you can go to snowbelle_

_@blue: the gym leader there knows kantonian!_

 

_@red: ill ask green_

 

_@blue: do you need his permission_

_@blue: you could just go_

 

_@red: right_

 

* * *

 

  1. if other people can do this so can i



 

* * *

 

Red sits the take-out cup onto the desk, a faint line of steam wafting from the mouth of the plastic lid. Green barely turns his head away from the laptop, where an endless wall of text fills the screen, glaring off his glasses.  
  
“Got a drink from the coffee man,” Red speaks up. Green looks again, properly this time, eyes rising in what seems to be surprise. But it must be a thankful sort, as Green sighs, taking it to move it where he can get better to it.  
  
“Thanks.”  
  
Red hums, then gets ready to crawl into bed for an early night. He already knows Green won’t be able to tear himself away from the essay until his body finally forces him to; doing things by halves had never been his style. It used to annoy Red when the results would be lorded over him, but now without the competition, and watching Green focus so diligently—it was admirable to witness the process that got him where he was.

There’s a lot he never understood when they were young. Red swallows up the knowledge now, wanting to drink in every little thing about Green there was to know.  
  
He’s dozed off for a while when Green wakes him trudging into bed, his back turned to him. Green’s a miserable-looking sight, even in the dark of night. Or maybe he’s imagining it. He must be, he realises.

But it’s enough to shuffle him closer to Green, resting an arm over the top of his, curling his hand around his shoulder. Red buries his nose by to the crook of Green’s neck, with some room spared to breathe.  
  
Green doesn’t stir. Red readies to fall asleep, his heart fluttering slightly, but fine with what he was doing; it’s nothing Green hasn’t done once or twice, just to make him fluster. Something about it feels—okay, he hopes.  
  
But then he feels Green’s hand brush over his, and Red’s eyes startle open. It rests there, motionless, and Red doesn’t know if to move away or to stay—before Green gently grips his hand and pulls it down over his arm.  
  
Without a word, Green wraps his fingers around Red's hand. Red doesn't speak either; he waits in the silence for anything more, and then curls his fingers around Green’s in turn, relishing in the strange, comforting warmth brought on by the gesture.

He lets his eyes close once more, falling asleep to thoughts of them for once, and not the world outdoors.

 

* * *

 

  1. if other people can do this so can i


  1. if other people can do this so can i


  1. if other people can do this so can i



  
  
  
  
  
  
 

  1. I want this to work out



 

* * *

 

“Is everything okay? You seem, um, I dunno... out of it?”

Red looks up from the healing container slotted into the wall, a small tune playing from the speakers by the screen displaying pixelated representations of his pokémon. Kris is leaning to the side, foot curled over the other, her arms looped in a similar fashion.

He gives her a shrug. She frowns, rolling her lips together, and rocks on a little on her foot.

“How have you been, anyway?” Her voice brightens when she speaks again. “It’s been nice seeing you around. You’ve been in Lumiose a lot more. I was surprised; you don’t look the type.” He must make a face or some kind of look, when she quickly adds, “It’s not any of my business.”

He shakes his head, a _ding_ sounding from the machinery, with a flashing ‘ _COMPLETE_ ’ blinking on screen.

“...I wanted to spend some time with Green,” he admits, turning to the touchpad and hovering a finger around uncertainly. “We’ve never had the chance to hang out before, so I wanted to…thanks,” he interrupts, when Kris finds the button to release the lid. “I’m sticking around.”

“Is that it? I see…” She speaks thoughtfully. “It must be hard if you’re used to being on the road. I met a lot of hikers when I was travelling who wouldn’t dream of settling down... People have to make sacrifices sometimes though, I guess,” she says with small nod.

There’s a pause, and then she asks: “Are you happy?”

He pretends to think about the question, but smiles a little too late.

“Sure.”

Her own smile strains.

 

* * *

 

 

* * *

 

 

* * *

 

 

* * *

 

 

      1. mountains, rivers, hills upon hills upon hills



 

      1. freedom



 

      1. _freedom_



 

* * *

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

* * *

 

 

* * *

  

 

“Let’s ditch the hotel. Let’s camp out.”

Green swings his head out from the bathroom he’s half-stepped into. “Huh?”

Anistar’s hotels are an upgrade to the cosy selections at Geosenge, and Green has been taking his time in examining every part of the room. But Red doesn’t care for any of it, doesn’t care for the large important rock they’re here to see, the experts Green has to meet, the sights, the reasons. He frowns from the edge of the bed, feeling the sides of the mattress sheet taut under his hands.

He pushes down the doubt, and tries again.

“My camping gear’s in the PC—what do you say? We can spend the night out. I’ll eat the cost for the hotel.”

He does his best to sound serious, _look_ serious, tight-lipped and staring directly at Green. There’s an urge in his stomach and disappointment ready in his limbs, and he tries to not _hope_ , but hope is too close to want, and wanting is all he’s been thinking about for weeks. For more than weeks.

Green looks back out from the bathroom; and under his gaze Red flinches, the features of his face wincing. Green laughs, leaning an arm on the doorframe.

“Ditch this—have you _seen_ the shower? Guess what grass and rocks _don’t_ have.”

Green swings his head back to survey the interior of the bathroom. “Anyway, I told you I’ve got the professor to meet with tomorrow. We can go for a quick nature walk afterwards.”

He only looks back when he feels the touch of Red’s hand turning his cheek, and Red crushes their lips together into a forceful kiss, trapping a sound of surprise inbetween. His other hand grabs at Green’s ass tight, and his teeth scrape along his jawline once Red allows Green to gasp for air. Incisors and canines drag down the slope of his neck before Red lifts his head, glaring hard in the small space separating their faces.

 _‘You’re annoying,’_ he wants to say, to spill every ounce of the frustration trapped in his chest.

“Let’s shower then,” he orders instead.

The water wrinkles their skin and scorches Red’s shoulders into streaks of red, but the marks he bites into Green are longer-lasting, fucked into him with his chest flattened against the tiled shower wall. Red comes to the sounds of Green’s moans louder than the hot spray from the shower head, the heat nearly making his knees buckle.

Empty, dizzy, _yes, me, I can do this, I can do this, is this enough? I can give this._

 

Green promptly falls asleep when his head hits his pillow, while Red stares at the ceiling, sick of the sight.

 

* * *

 

      1. his world, my world
      2. can they work together?
      3. I want to leave, but….
      4. I don’t want to lose what we have now
      5. I want



 

      1. I don’t know



 

      1. I want to enjoy this a while longer.



 

                          him.

 

                          us.

 

    1. but i feel so empty some days




	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi thanks for your comments! i'm probably going to be a little slow though, sorry sorry.
> 
> (asking for a friend but are there any hang out places for pokemon fic writers/fans. i'm bad at searching on tumblr.)

“Is she okay?”

“Huh, who? Kris?”

“Mm.”

Green looks over to where Kris stands. She’s adjusting a silvery-blue scarf around her neck by curling it around more, and then hovering over it, as if wondering if to remove it. But the hand drops, for about five seconds before returning to realign the v-neck of her shirt. It lowers once again. It stays down for a little longer, but Kris must suddenly think about her hair when it shoots up to the back of her head. Despite the speed, she pats hesitantly at the air around it, afraid of displacing a single strand.

She eventually sighs, the sound lost to the noise of the busy train station but not to Red, and shakes her head, patting hard at her cheeks.

“Huh,” Green sounds again. “Dunno. Hey, is she wearing makeup?” He grins, knocking Red with an elbow.  “Think she’s trying to impress you?”

 _Oh._ Impress.

“Blue,” Red says as it clicks.

“Eh?”

They’re on the way to meet Blue at Kiloude, a city bordering the region of Kalos and its southern neighbour, walled by an expansive mountain and forest landscape mostly left to the wildest of pokémon. Apparently, it’s been in the plans for weeks, which Kris shares in great detail with an exasperated tone for some of the ride, though with her eyes set on the passing countryside than keeping on either of them.

“Of course she knew all our timetables.” She waves a hand, as if this was bad. “You would think she’d try for earlier, but that’s Blue for you. _Typical_ — this is typical her. Ever since we met...”

Red finds the constant objections fascinating, if only worth listening to in one ear, his attention otherwise on the shifting landscape. Green was prepared for the two hour ride as soon as they got in their seats: earbuds poked in, head lolled on his shoulder and eyes closed, his arms folded over his stomach. Whatever z’s he lost in waking up early today, he was determined to catch up with them now.

A good plan, Red found, his own head soon tucking against the side of his chair and the wall. Kris had given up on her ‘complaints’, but not the knot worn heavy at her brow the entire morning, chewing occasionally on her bottom lip.

She didn’t look much better once they got off the train, the group finding Blue by an info centre. The woman opens her arms wide, a dash of joy on an otherwise dreary-coloured day.

“Hiiiii!”

She takes each of them into a great hug. Green’s blearily awake for it, Red still feeling her arms around him once she lets go. Kris is left for last, and with a wider smile to boot. “And how’s my favourite girl been?”

Theirs last longer, and Red spots the deepening colour on Kris’s cheeks.

Green yawns beside him obliviously.

“They have battle functions all day, every day. Singles, doubles, rotations; you want to do it, you’ve got it. There’s _never_ a lack of trainers.”

Blue is the perfect host for an entire city—not a first timer, Red figures. It’s as idyllic as Santalune and Camphrier put together, and where business and consumerism makes up the bustle of Lumiose, Red can hear—if he listens past Blue—the distant, but all too familiar, sounds of battling. The selection of pokémon walking the streets matches Blue’s hype as well: from pangoros to blastoise, houndoom to probopass, pachirisu to venomoth. Two trainers with a drapion and goodra continue on by in their own conversation as Blue stops their train, turning to face everyone. She’s pulled out pamphlets and keys from her handbag, the former which turns out to be a map, once Red folds it out.

“The hotel is nice, and those are your keys. You just need to go down that road,” she points south, “to get to it. Buuut, if you want to go sightseeing…!”

She finishes off the sentence by spreading her hands in a _tada_ motion, holding the pose, then clapping them together.

“So! With all that said and done...” Blue eyes Kris, her smile finding a way to brighten even more. “I was thinking we could practice some doubles later?”

Kris adjusts the strap of her carrier bag, shrugging with her head to feign disinterest.

“I guess so. But I want to put my things away first.” She looks to Red and Green, the latter who’s fighting off another yawn. “What are you two going to do?”

“Oh, don’t worry,” Blue cuts in, her smile turning devilish. “We _are_ going after them.”

“ _Hah_.” A weight sits itself on Red’s shoulder—Green’s arm, by the elbow poking out. He’s gone from half-dead to cocky in an instant. “Looking forward to kicking your sorry asses. Right, Red?”

The arm slips down, hand crawling around the other side of Red’s waist. Red knocks it off, pulling down on his hat. “I’m going to check out the battlers.”

Green stands rebuffed for a second. He then runs a hand through his hair. “Yeah, well— don’t go too far. I’ve gotta put up my stuff.”

Red gives a halfhearted nod, not concerned about the bag of gear he was carrying himself, and leaves the separating group, heading down the street marked by Blue’s scribbled-on map.

He finds she wasn’t exaggerating about the amount of trainers. The streets only get more crowded the deeper into the city he gets; where tall narrow buildings tucked together make the roads of any other city, large halls and open grounds are the dominant force here, and not the cafés that squish themselves in the gaps. Red slows to watch battles unfolding behind fenced parks, the sidewalks half-occupied by people sitting and drinking, chatting away easily all around him.

In one immediate park field, a toxicroak and and magneton are in a high-speed battle, their trainers sparing no time in the commands they shout. The toxicroak is attempting to move in close with drain punches charged its fists, backflipping to move out of the shots of electricity being thrown out like darts to keep distance. One shot of electricity hits, and the flinch gives the magneton the time to dose out a fuller charge.

The toxicroak cries out, but not all in pain. Through the attack it extends out its arms, bladed hand-claws pointed, energy bursting around it. _Sword Dance_ , used as a means to cut off the attack to allow the pokémon to go back in for the kill. Red’s entranced, not realising the light taps to his shoulders to be unusual until—

Oh. Now.

“Yo! _Match? Match?_ ”

Red swings his head, blinking at the person, some guy, next to him. He’s holding up a pokéball, waiting on Red’s response. Red looks to his own belt of companions, each pokéball wiggling at his waist.

He nods.

Green doesn’t catch up to him until later, amidst a battle between Lapras and a woman’s scizor, tapping a foot impatiently.

“Took me _two hours_ ,” he helpfully provides multiple times in his ranting, which makes Red pause mid-sip of his water bottle.

“Really?”

“ _Yes!”_

“Huh.”

Felt like half an hour to him.

Green doesn’t find his surprise entertaining, and pulls him away from the battle park with a tug of his ear. Once out on the path, Green shoves his map into Red’s hands, while he uses the GPS of his pokégear.

“I’m not going to half-ass beating the girls in battle, and I’m not gonna let you slow me down either, so we’re training together, stat. There’s battles at the _Battle Maison_ perfect to practice at.”

 _Battle Maison?_ Red asks with a raise of his eyes, but said Battle Maison not a far walk from where they were, the structure more prominent than even the Battle Château’s, well…... château. It’s a mansion with a large dome extension at its back, surrounded by a brick wall matching the date of whenever the mansion was first built. The entrance hall is large and speckled with people and pokémon alike, but it’s into the dome interior that Green leads them to.

The noise of the room crashes into Red’s ears as soon as they enter, the farthest ends as loud as where he stands. The grey clouds they’d left can be seen above, a hazy layer fogging between outdoors and in, but the interior far from dark. A staraptor blurs overhead, getting lost in the fights taking place inbetween when Red tries to trail it. Rectangular platforms make the battle spots, a good five or six, and trainers stand around the spaces as spectators, or sitting on the stands gathered to one side.

“Hey.” Green bats at his arm, bringing Red’s attention back home. “Stop daydreaming, it’s our turn— no, don’t start walking off. Who’re you gonna use first?”

Red looks at his belt, but already knows who he’ll pick before he unclips him.

“Pikachu.”

“Do you ever lead with anyone else?” Green pulls at the side of his mouth, while Red frowns. “Alright, then I’ll use Rhyperior. You distract the pokémon, we’ll get them from behind. We’ll work out the rest along the way.”

Stepping onto a small platform—small, by the standards of the rooms back at the institute, but still long and wide enough to give the pokémon room to move—reminds Red that he’s never experienced double battles with another trainer. It was always him by himself, usually on an excursion in the wild when times called for it. He avoids it when he can; and with Rhyperior now standing beside Pikachu like a mountain in their differences, he recalls why as his mind starts calculating the ways they can move together, as a team, then the thought dropping abruptly.

He won’t be the one in control of Rhyperior too. And it’s distracting, knowing he’ll be relying on someone else in such a close proximity. Even if that other person _was_ Green.

A noivern and nidoqueen take to the other side from a girl and boy pair. Red recognises quickly the airbound flying-type grouped with a ground type would cause just as much trouble for Pikachu as his own team-mate would if he stuck to the ground. _If_ he stuck to the ground. Red looks at Green from the corner of his eye, being met with his profile. Would the few quick instructions he gave beforehand work to get them through this?

Green wasn’t looking worried, in any case. _A speedy front distracting the opponent to give the slow but heavy hitter the time to make some damage._ Red could only hope that he was on the right track with Green’s thinking as the match begins with nidoqueen slamming down her foot. The impact sends shockwaves rushing the ground, with Rhyprior’s hefty leg already raised to return the gift. Pikachu darts up her body and up onto her head, his small frame far from a distracting presence, and throws himself into the air where the noivern readies a soundwave from its mouth. It gets thrown by the pikachu now clinging to its body instead, and the burst of energy that propels it when the two _earthquakes_ make contact below.

But the knockback is momentary. The noivern pushes Pikachu off with a _tailwind_ that surrounds it and its partner in an air current wrapping around their forms. He finds his feet easily, but their opponents have experience, and it shows in how they work together: Red doesn’t even notice until it’s too late the wall of water by the nidoqueen that washes Pikachu into, and up into Rhyperior, whose slammed fists erupting a _stone edge_ beneath her opponents doesn’t rise as high as it could when her partner and the waters carrying him smash into her.

Red rocks on his feet, inhaling between his gritted teeth. Should he have known? He should’ve paid attention. There’s an imbalance, searching for a way to connect to Green’s line of thinking, to follow it, amidst the tangle of his own thoughts. No, he’s trying to take a lead—or is he? Does he understand Green’s methods, the way he works?

 _“Red_ , _”_ Green signals to him, making a sharp gesture with his hand. Red has little time to interpret it while maintaining his attention on the battlefield, where the nidoqueen is conjuring another _surf_ between rising claws.

Pikachu is on his feet again, body sparking. Red casts aside his own ideas, and directs Pikachu, _“Nido, volt tackle!_ ” without delay.

The noivern’s trainer calls for a startled _hurricane_ , winds spiralling on themselves with opening wings calling forth the attack. But it gives Rhyperior an opening Red only had a suspicion of, splintered rocks blasting out from her hand-cannons to knock the flying type down, while Pikachu, brimming with the electricity, aims directly for the spherical water about to be tossed to the ground.

It explodes upon impact, thrashing into the nidoqueen and already knocked noivern, turning into a conductor for the electricity that even the nidoqueen absorbs. Pikachu is thrown back in the blast as well.

But he isn’t a pokémon unfamiliar to a beating. He stands, ragged breaths as sharp as the readied expression in his narrowed gaze.

 _Quick_ . Red hears the command—feels it—inside him. Is this urge in him his, or someone else’s? Regardless, Red listens, calling for Pikachu to get back into motion again while the others are still dazed with a _steel tail_ ; and Pikachu is already rushing before the nidoqueen has chance to do more than to raise her head for the incoming attack.

It connects, and she stumbles back, falling down. Seconds pass, and neither of the pokémon rise to their feet.

They disappear in a flash of light. Pikachu scurries preemptively to avoid what will come to replace them, Rhyperior roaring with pride to still be standing.

Red’s fingers tingle, the sensation creeping up his arms, the rush of battle and a win, of more. He looks over to Green, who’s _brimming_ as he plans a change of pokémon of his own. Not just in his curved smile, his usual self-satisfaction; there’s a light in his eyes Red’s never witnessed up close, catching him off-guard. Glowing, alive.

Something tightens in his chest. When Red looks back to the battlefield, a garchomp and bisharp stand now in wait.

It’s a fire, Red realise. That something, spreading in him from his heart and through his body, revitalising his limbs anew. Not his, but Green’s. His passion, in him. A connection? His imagination? Whatever it was, he wanted to carry that burning passion as far as he could take it.

* * *

 

His skin feels clammy once it’s over, the air between his clothing stuffy as well as the air inside the dome. But Red’s mind is on an euphoric high, the infatuation still making him giddy, and he’s not bothered by how close he’s sitting next to Green on the lined benches, arms pressed together. If Red lost any more of his senses, he might turn his face and kiss him, then kiss him again.

It was a tempting thought on his lips. Hard to shake off.

“Don’t you miss battling so much?” He asks instead.

“Battling all day, getting sweaty; sure, what’s _not_ to miss?” The sarcasm fails to hit with the grin digging into Green’s cheeks. “But I can’t battle 24/7 _and_ be in school. Gotta make sacrifices sometimes.”

“Is it _that_ interesting?”

Green runs a hand through his hair, pushing back the strands making him a fringe.

“It’s a drag sometimes,” he answers. “But yeah, I like it.”

There’s no disappointment. It’s hard to be disappointed by an answer you already knew. Maybe he should be, when it was Green’s schooling keeping him so close to Lumiose in the first place. That dumb, stupid city; he can be petty about that place even now. It doesn’t detract though, the calm honesty of Green’s answer, the flushed colour on his cheeks, and whatever this _high_ he’s riding after their matches that makes Red happy, first and foremost.

He’s never felt this kind of close to Green as he has before. Did he knock his head at some point? Was it just the battles, the way they always made him feel? And now that little extra something; that voice inside him, one he knew well, but not like that. Working in sync, or close to it. They’ve never battled together before. The knowledge is as baffling as it is stupidly obvious. There’s a lot they haven’t done.

Red places a hand on Green’s knee, a gesture he doesn’t really think about. Green turns to him, their eyes locking. Green’s smile softens, but somehow deepens at the same time. The weight of it makes Red want to shrink, and he does lean back some as Green moves a little in; but Green has him focused, feeling his tongue lick the roof of his mouth.

“You look like you wanna kiss me,” Green mutters, voice low.

He gives Red a moment, and then closes the gap between them, pressing their lips together. Red doesn’t push him back, not at first; because it’s true that he wants to, and he feels his tongue behind his lips, a fraction close to slipping out to taste Green’s lips, his mouth. Him.

But there’s sound of whistling, maybe not even for them. It snaps Red back to his surroundings anyway, body and all. He stands quicker than he ever has, reality burning him hotter than Charizard’s flames.

 _“Idiot.”_ His voice is weaker than he means it to be, and it’s a surprise he can hear anything over the scorching of his cheeks, of his ears. “We’re in public.”

Green calls (and laughs) behind his back, but Red doesn’t give him the time of day until they’re far from the maison, and the butterfree have stopped banging around in his stomach.  


* * *

  


Blue texts them to meet for dinner later. They spend it in a small, tight, but cozy hole in the wall stuffed by pokémon and human alike. Conversations spill out onto neighbouring tables along with the drinks. Kris remarks she’ll only have one, alright, fine, _two_ ; but she has a weakness for cocktails, and Red can see why when he gets one too with a tiny red umbrella.

They make their way to the hotel without too much trouble. Blue’s laughter carries all the way to the lobby, and—despite the fumbling with the elevator’s floor panel, poking nearly two numbers at once—up to their floor, where she gives grandiose gestures before all their doors.

It takes a second for Red to realise he and Green have separate rooms. He still nearly goes for Green’s room anyway, but turns on the same step he takes towards it, awkwardly pretending that didn’t just happen. Blue is eyeing him slyly from the corner of his vision, but he ignores it to get quicker into the room.

The simple design is comforting, nothing hard to miss, but the small size of a single bed strikes him as weird, when he spots it. He’s grown used to the shape Green’s in his apartment, the ones he books in his fancy hotels.

Red doesn’t fuss over the details for long though, as the drink in his system drifts him quickly to sleep as soon as his head his the pillow.

Blue wakes him far too early the next day, her knocking and sing-song voice coming from the hallway.

“Reeeeddddyyy, get ready! Don’t get up, you’ll miss breakfast!”

Kris looks sour to be awake despite how immaculately-dressed she is otherwise, while Green doesn’t hide any of his grievances on the way to the dining hall, his hair a fluffier mess than usual. “If I knew _this_ was gonna be my weekend—”

“You’ll be _fine_ ,” Blue reassures airily.

Red vacuums the food around two hot cups of tea that soothe his dry throat, and then they’re out in a too-bright day, the clouds gathered in the sky be damned. Blue has a list of activities for them to get involved in, not excluding their agreed to battle the day before, and there’s an open market that’s been put together in a field crudely organised by folded-out tables and blankets laid out on the ground. Training gear, and _I-swear-on-it_ herbal medicines.

That part doesn’t so much interest Red, but the nearby battles do. Stages have been set up to instigate field effects that anyone can train under for a few coins. It’s a popular means of training, or just showing off: trick rooms, wonder rooms; even something a man apparently describes as an _inverse_ battle, which Red gets pushed in for a go, and oh, it does exactly what it says on the tin.

The late evening’s crept on them before Red really notices, the giant bonfire that’s been lit his first clue to be aware of more than the show of talents. Green doesn’t move far from the battle stages, while they spot Kris and Blue with a funnel cake split between them, the halves they eat about as big as their heads.

They find small stumps scattered around to sit down on, and Blue comes bearing small plastic cups from somewhere. It’s sweet, but Red can’t tell if it’s alcoholic, or if he’s imagining it.

“Why don’t we go on a trip? Ditch school. Let’s enjoy life.”

Red perks up, cup around his mouth. He expects to see Blue talking to Kris, but she’s eyeing each of them in succession. She has an arm tucked around one of Kris’s.

“We could even stay here,” she continues. “The mountains have a great big forest—isn’t this near where they say Xernea’s tree is? We can wake up a legendary,” Blue suggests impishly.

“You’re as bad as Red,” Green groans. Red can’t decide if to be offended at the tone he uses.

“Then I have Red on my side.” Blue’s at least having some fun. “Kriiiiis? Don’t say you’re not interested.”

“I’m more interested in not wasting three years of studying,” Kris answers carefully, a touch sympathetic towards Blue. A touch more for herself.

“Boo! You’re too responsible.” Holding a pout, Blue turns back to Green.

“Green—”

“Nope.”

She huffs. “I think that’s up to Red, don’t you?” Blue looks straight-on now at Red. He blinks.

“You, me. Ditch your boyfriend for a month with me.”

The plastic crunches under his fingers, but the drink’s low enough not to spill over.  “He’s not my boyfriend.”

Blue looks at the both of them, smiling with an all-knowing look on her.  “Are you two really not…?” She asks, already doubtful.

“Well—”

“No.”

Green makes a sound beside him, and Red turns his head, a brow raised. Green stares back at him with the same look. He then shrugs, taking a drink that Red almost thinks isn’t going to end.

But when it does—“Well, you heard him.”

For once, Blue looks lost. She doesn’t drag them out from the silence that builds, and builds, and builds, becoming uncomfortable to pay any more attention to. Red sips at the remnant of his drink slowly, then pretends to after a point.

Kris is the first to speak up, standing onto her feet.

“Blue, will you do some double battles with me? We might as well make the most of the trip until we leave.”

Blue just about bolts up at the invitation, looking relieved. She waves at Red and Green before she leaves.

“Don’t get up to any trouble!”

There isn’t much trouble _to_ get into. Green stands up not long after they leave, the heavy air no any lighter with their absence.

He crushes the plastic cup in his hand, dropping it to ground. “I’m gonna get some more battles in too,” he states plainly. Still he hovers for a second, like he has more to say.

But then he’s off, disappearing easily into the crowd.

Red stays a little longer, the fire burning too hot on one side, a chill clinging to his back. The air might be lighter, but the contrasting temperatures worsen as time ticks away. It’s his legs growing stiff that eventually gets him to eventually walk. He thinks he sees Kris and Blue at some point chatting privately, but decides to leave them to it, wandering the grounds and weaving the set-ups just to keep himself occupied. Eventually, he finds a spot close to the bonfire, but shrouded in the dark of trees slouching at an angle.

He brings out Venusaur to join him, for the company.

“You don’t mind, do you?” He asks; bumping his head by her ear, his body tucked close to hers. “It’s not too cold?”

She groans happily, curling in her legs to get comfortable. The scent of her flower relaxes the tense state of his limbs, emptying his mind. The way it always has since she became an ivysaur, going onto a venusaur. The way she’s always been, being his first.

“Do you want to go back? It’s been more fun here than Lumiose.”

Fun with Green, the girls, the challengers. He toys with the thought, like thread between his fingers. Venusaur groans again; the sound is non-committal, encouraging him to go on. There’s more to what he’s thinking, and she knows it.

But that was a problem with a mind drifting in a waking sleep. He just sighs, rubbing a hand along the back of her neck, under her leaf.

“It’d be nice…” he mumbles into the open air.

But they would go back by tomorrow, and life will return to the grind. The same things, over and over and over. It was difficult, to be as positive about the idea of convincing Green into more double battles, to experience what they did this weekend. Like the electricity when they first came together, sexually; the excitement of it, the clumsiness. How easier the apartment was to be in, their lives fitting together, or how Red made it fit. Learning about Green, or believing he was. Trying to fit in, tighter and tighter. Clinging to whatever he could to keep him in place.

Dread. It was somewhere, lurking in the back of his mind, only pushed away by the temporary comfort Venusaur could provide.

Green is the one to find them, Red curled on his side next to Venusaur, close to dozing in the cold for real. He doesn’t say much as they head back to the hotel, and Red doesn’t think to ask anything, listening to the crunching gravel underfoot while the smell of his girl cradling his body.

“So… what do you think about what Blue said?”

Red nearly misses what Green says, and it takes him a second to think about what he means. The surprise wakes him up a little.

“You want to?”

“You do?” Green looks back at him just as shocked. “You didn’t sound gung-ho about it.”

“I want to travel,” Red starts quickly. “If you and Kris can come—”

“Wait.” Green raises a hand up to stop him. “I’m talking about—the other thing.”

“What thing?”

“You gotta make me spit it out?” Green chews on his tongue, shoulders lifting as he huffs. _"D_ _ating?_ ”

Oh.

 _What?_ Red’s brow furrows.

“What about that?”

“A guy can’t be insulted when you turn him down?” Green’s voice rises indignantly, then changes its tune. “ _Sure_ , if it was the other way round, no one’d blame _me_ for wanting someone a little less weird...”

Red eyes lift, too cold to bother rolling the total 360 degrees. “So what’s the big deal?”

“Oh, nothing,” Green says, in the exact opposite tone of being _nothing_. “So you’re just happy fucking a guy, and...” He doesn’t bother to finish.

“You haven’t had a problem with it so far.”

Not that Red would describe their thing like _that_ , but whatever works for Green. It’s a good enough point to get Green to drop the topic, though Red waits for more. But Green just turns his head, shooting cold air from his nose and mouth, and that must be that.

The walk to their rooms is far from quiet, but there’s no exchanges of _good night_ as they separate, Green’s closing door the only bye.

Red does better waking up the next morning. He manages to beat Blue, who’s yawning the loudest of them going to breakfast, with Green more quiet in his early morning grogginess and Kris just the same. The girls had met up with friends of Blue, keeping them out for most of the night, and then they’d been chatting alone. A detail Blue smiled cheekily over, while Kris was adamant to move on, and get ready for their rides back.

Blue isn’t as prepared to let Kris go once they finally get to the train station. Not figuratively or literally, squeezing her in a death-grip that would make Snorlax blush. It’s no wonder why Kris gasps when she _does_ let her go, when the hugs move onto Green and Red, and Red remembers the sore spots she’d left just days before.

“I’ll miss you and I’ll see you all really soon! Kick some school butt, okay?”

She waves them off until the train pulls away, leaving them for the long ride back to Lumiose. As Red watches them leave the platform, the browns of brick walls leading to indoor restrooms, toilets and information boards giving way to fenced off land overgrown by weeds and tiny flowers, the colours drag in the switch. A shadow darting over the windows, before the scenic hills and wild fauna would awe people in its natural beauty.

This day, this time, leaving them behind. There in a second, and then gone. Red mulls over the feeling, but finds it too depressing, and spends most of the ride this time round chatting with Kris until they part ways once back in Lumiose.

The apartment greets them lazily when they walk through the door, quiet and idle. The pause of their lives before they left sits as a couple of magazines on the coffee table, two cereal bowls and cups waiting to be washed next to the kitchen sink. Nothing about the place is awake, but neither is the dread that Red knows lives in him. It’s dormant. Soon it’ll stir, and so will the rooms, and everything will go back to way it was.

Green’s reaching for a clean cup from the cupboard, the kettle put onto boil. Red nudges his hand away, getting him to face him.

“Hey.”

He wraps his hands around his head, kissing him, wanting to enjoy the time before that problem would emerge. Green’s body is warm to press against, but his mouth is still, his lips not moving. Red begins to pull back, spotting Green’s already half-open eyes.

But Green cups his cheeks to pull him back in, searching for the hem of Red’s shirt while their tongues come together.

  
  
  


It would be the last time they would.


	10. Chapter 10

_ @blue: heyyyy red _

 

_ @red: hi _

 

_ @blue: hi! _

_ @blue: so ummmm _

_ @blue: everythings okay over there right? _

 

_ @red: yeah _

 

_ @blue: okay good! _

 

_ @red: why _

 

_ @blue: oh nothing _

_ @blue: well umm _

_ @blue: i was hoping i didnt say anything funny before _

 

_ @red: when _

 

_ @blue: in kiloude? _

_ @blue: kris warned me about teasing too much… _

 

_ @red: oh _

  
  


_ @red: its fine _

 

_ @blue: good! _

_ @blue: i didnt want to make things weird for you and green _

_ @blue: anyway _

_ @blue: say hi to him for me! _

 

_ @red: i will _   
  


* * *

 

 

“Blue says hi.”

“Oh. Sure.”

Green doesn’t look away from his mug or the coffee he’s pouring, cream set to the side. Red stands at the kitchen island behind him, waiting for something more than an  _ ‘oh, sure’ _ . But the more doesn’t come, leaving him to shift uselessly on his feet.

“Do you want to eat out tonight?”

“Nah, I’m busy. Got stuff to do.”

“Mm.” Red pauses. “I can buy pizza then.”

“Sure, whatever you want,” Green answers plainly, drink in hand. The bitter smell wafts up Red’s nostrils as Green walks past him, leaving for his bedroom without another word.

With nothing but the leftover silence for company, Red goes to grab the dinner plans, a hot cheese and tomato sauce calling to his stomach the entire way back from its box. It’s a hard jigglypuff lullaby to resist, but he manages to pull it off, dropping the pizza and a bag—of important extra garlic sauces and a packet of wings—onto the kitchen counter.

“Green! Come out or I’ll eat your half!”

Which is an appetising proposition by sights alone, the teasing smell of cheese, fish, peppers and tomato sauce salivating his mouth with a lid no longer concealing the sweet food inside. Red doesn’t wait to pull at a slice, cheese stretching and snapping, but not dragging off the rest of the ingredients in its resistance.

_ Glorious.  _ Tomates, poivrons et poisson—just how Green likes to hear it (and the people in the pizza shop). Flour and grease coat his fingers, but he doesn’t care, munching half-way through the first slice before he considers his missing company. But he decides to leave him be, taking out the paper bag of wings out to stick his crust into the outer packaging. No point in wasting it when Snorlax would be more than happy for the bite-sized snack.

Red moves to the couch, flicking the TV onto one of the few channels he knew. Unovan shows with subtitles, usually with men eating monstrous foods from around the region that never failed to make Green’s nose scrunch up as it was devoured with less grace than Snorlax’s table manners, Green would complain all the way through, saying he was being put off his dinner. Contrary to the fork going to his mouth soon after.

Personally, Red always wanted to memorise the names of the restaurants and the cities they were located in, but he always failed to jot them down later on. But there had to be crazy food challenges like that in Kalos too, right? Maybe this was a new calling in life.

That show wasn’t on tonight, but something involving trainers from across the globe, which was good enough. He gets halfway through his third slice before he can’t stop giving looks to the bedroom door.  Still closed. Still nothing.

“Hey.”

The pizza box pokes its head first through the door, wings sitting on top. Red’s head follows after from above, leaning in.  “You wanna eat in here?”

Green sits tucked to his desk, the glare of the laptop reflecting off his glasses. His head shifts, but stops short from turning Red’s way.

“I’ll eat later,” he answers, a tired note in his voice. “I’m busy.”

“More exams?” Except Red was sure those were over. He pushes open the door, walking in. “I can leave the box in here.”

“ _ Wait _ ,” Green snaps. Red stops. “And get grease on my laptop? I’ve told you before, don’t bring food in here.”

He’s looking at Red now, glaring behind his glasses with a twisted mouth. Red stands dumbly, box in hands, conjuring the argument that pizza isn’t  _ that  _ bad in his head. Why agree to pizza if it wasn’t going to be the right food? 

“Okay,” he says instead, backing out slowly from the room. “I’ll leave it out, so whenever you’re done.”

He leaves him to it, setting the food onto the kitchen side, out of the way from his picky fingers to let the rest of the show finish. After that, and still with no Green, Red takes the crusts and a sneaky handful of pokéchow to make it worthwhile waking an always napping Snorlax.

Snorlax somewhat appreciates it, after a gruff and a huff and squinting at Red for more, which Red gets on his tiptoes to ruffle an ear and laugh. “That  _ was _ your more. Don’t get sulky when I just gave you extras.”

Huffy was Snorlax’s forever expression, and he gives a dismissive snort to Red’s chiding, but wraps one of his short arms around Red, pushing him into his bulging stomach and its warmth. 

The nights were getting colder. It was one of those things Snorlax did, and it takes Red a second to realise it’s there. He pats on the thick paw, what was holding him more than the arm.

“Big softy,” he teases. “As bad as Saur.” 

Snorlax grunts harder, a warning, but Red just grins and talks at the pokémon about this and that before heading back to the apartment, cool air clinging to his arms. 

Green is nowhere to be seen, but the pizza box has been moved, some of the wings gone from their bag.

When Red retires to the bedroom, Green’s already asleep.

 

* * *

 

Red makes scrambled eggs for the both of them the next morning, readies a cup by the coffee machine for when Green actually wakes, and takes the pokémon to the park to eat. He doesn’t know why, but he swears that Green’s pokémon are eyeing him weirdly, their circle drawn closer together than it had been as of late. Even Arcanine eats with her back turned to Red’s team, Pikachu’s ears drooping when the pokémon ignores his attempts at conversation.

It becomes all the more apparent that something’s up with the first battle at the institute. Tyranitar, usually a rambunctious figure in his own right, refuses to listen to his commands, bulldozing towards a delphox that deploys use of its magical flame, stunning him in place. 

Red swaps him out as the delphox blasts rings of endless fire that serve to aggravate its already short-temper, moving onto Blastoise. He ignores the chides of the other trainer, and brings the pokémon back out once the match ends.

“What’s up with you?”

Gruff.

“I know you don’t like losing. You wouldn’t lose for no reason.”

Grrrrr.

“That’s what happened, Tyranitar. So tell me—”

A deafening roar cuts him off, blasting him with the foul stench of early morning breath. When Tyranitar finally snaps his jaw shut, he shows Red his back, plopping down on his hard backside.

Red stares, face stuck in a grimace.

The smell very well must be clinging to him when the lobby attendant stammers  _ a-au revoir  _ when he goes to leave, smile hard to keep on her face.

It’s a little better, or so Red hopes, by the time he exits out the south-western city gate onto Versant Road. Pikachu isn’t complaining, but he’s running so far ahead that Red has to whistle when he nearly goes past their destination. His ears and tail stand straight straight in attention, and he spots where a collection of noises sing, high-pitched, squeaky, and excited. 

Baby pokémon are out in play, from oddish, goomy, fennekins and froakies. A pack of litleo follow the heels of one blue-haired girl, jumping at her while she dangles a play rope above their heads.

Kris must feel eyes on her, catching the sight of Red by the fencing; and the litleo all grab for the rope, Kris yelping, and them running off with the toy while she frantically motions at Red.

“Come in, help me out! You too!”

_ You too _ meaning Pikachu, perched on the upper edge. He hops down and into the den, while Red, taking note of where the front door technically  _ is _ , does his best not to look too dumb as he hops over the fencing instead.

A litleo has claimed the rope by the time Pikachu scampers over. It stands with its front legs low to the ground, growling at the others, and growling too at Pikachu’s approach. All of the pokémon back off as the unknown electric-type takes a short hop forward, hopping back, then turning around to show them his tail, wiggling it around before turning it away again.

Their tense postures relax some as their heads raise, interest showing. Pikachu gives another show of his tail, swishin it from side to side, and the four litleo begin to pad in slowly…

And they take the bait, chasing after him as he scarpers with his tail waving in their sights. The rope is forgotten—except by a lone fennekin, who sneakily grabs it into its mouth and scarpers back to Kris’s feet, where it had been lurking all along. Shaking it proudly, it drops to the ground for just a second, where the long tongue of a froakie snatches it It has it all for about five seconds before a long tongue of a froakie snatches it, hopping away.

Red looks from the scene, over to Kris. 

“Got another?”

Laughing, Kris pulls out a squeak toy in the shape of an ekans from her bucket, giving it a squeeze.

 

\--  
  


Red’s finally allowed mercy once he’s been coated in a layer of sticky bubbles that he’s still popping from his jacket, the brim of his hat singed by a sulky fire-type. Good thing he was used to those. 

“You’re a natural!” Kris praises. “It’s always good to be young at heart.”

“You sound like an old person,” he jokes.

“I— young people would say it too,” she flusters, straightening herself.

“How’s it going?” Red throws out, to ease her easy embarrassment. It seems to work, the pinch of her lip relaxing right away.

“Tiring! But it’s great. I’m really learning a lot. I have to be thankful my momma made me babysit the kids back home.” She smiles, pressing into place the green headscarf she wears.

“You were the big sis to everyone?”

She laughs. “I guess so! I was a few years older or more than most of the other kids, and everyone knew everyone, so I would get the job.”

The fennekin curled on her lap wiggles in its sleep, then settles once more. 

“Have you ever raised a baby pokemon?” she asks. The question makes Red pause.

“Not really… but I got a lot of pokémon for the pokédex. Most of them went to the professor, but I kept a few with me.”

“Really? I’ve never seen you use any others except yours and Green’s.”

“I gave them good homes—I tried to,” he amends. There were the attempts that went well; the ones that could be taken to dojos and battling organisations, who were more than pleased to have skilled fighters in their line-ups. Those made up most of who stayed with him after everything. And then…

There was one case. Red closes his parted mouth, letting the memory bring flashes of pictures to the front of his eyes. Travelling Mt. Silver’s snow-covered heights, the silence of a closed-off heart and the anger that boiled underneath…

“Red?”

Red looks over, catching Kris watching him curiously, and with concern. He shakes his head,  _ It’s nothing  _ on his lips. But then—he wonders. About telling her. He’s never told anyone before, because who would he talk to it about? It always slipped his mind with the professor. 

But Kris was different from other trainers. It wasn’t the same as their talk about myths and legendaries, but it was close enough. 

“There was one… they weren’t used to people, and they didn’t trust me at the beginning. But slowly… we got somewhere. Or I thought we did.  But one day I woke up, and they were gone.”

“How long ago was this?”

“Years ago. I’ve never heard anything about them, so I’m sure they’re okay…”

“Were they... important?”

The weight on  _ important  _ makes clear what she means. Red nods.

“It’s a long story... but they were one of a kind. Not a legendary. But they were young, in a way. Really powerful, but they didn’t know much about the world. I took them with me, and they were great at battling, but at the same time—it was really angry. They were angry. There was a lot going on with them, and I really had to work to communicate with them.

“I think… they needed more than what I could give them at the time,” he admits. “I was gung-ho about training in the wild, but they needed more than battling everyday.” He points up. “I was on a mountain at the time.”

“Oh?”

He nods again, looking out for Pikachu in the fenced in yard. Still with the litleo, climbing around on a playset with a slide and levels. A smile pulls on his face for a second, then drops as he turns away.

“It was bad timing. I dunno…  we got into fights and they were starting to show signs of paying attention to everyone more—y’know, little things, like helping out, keeping the snow off our heads. But then… I don’t remember. It was a long time ago, but then they were gone. I don’t remember if anything led up to it.”

“I’m sure you did your best.” A hand rests on the side of his arm, accompanied by the smile sitting warmly on Kris’s face, reaching her eyes. “It’s not always easy, and whatever their story is… sometimes, just a short time with someone can have a big impact on a person. It’s not easy to take in. And this is the first time I’ve heard you talk so much about anything,” she adds, smile turning more into a grin, “so I can tell it mattered a fair amount to you at the time.”

His head ducks to the truth of her remark, not entirely out of embarrassment—but it was hard to deny that out of all the times they’ve met, he’s left most of the talking to her out of habit. 

Still, it was hard to know if she was right or not about the rest. If he did enough, if he did the right things. One wrong choice can change everything, and sometimes, you don’t even know what it was that caused it.

The thoughts stick with him, heading back into the city.

 

* * *

 

Red sits Green’s pokéballs onto his desk, one by one.

“Something’s bothering Tyranitar,” he says. ”Have you noticed anything? Exeggutor seemed off today too. And Rhyperior… she’s already always grouchy, but.”

Green snorts without looking away from the laptop screen. But he picks up each of the balls, moving them to the other side, away from Red. “Maybe they don’t want to train with someone who isn’t their trainer all the time. Shouldn’t you ask me before you take them? It’s annoying when I look for them and they aren’t there, y’know. ”

There’s an edge to the reproach Red isn’t expecting, and he stands dumbfounded before frowning, keeping down some of his own bite.

“It was never a problem before.”

“Well, it bothers me  _ now. _ Would you be happy if I just took your pokemon without saying?”

Red pauses. “You could…”

“I don’t  _ want  _ to,” grits Green, voice becoming hard. “Just leave my pokémon with me.”

Red throws up his hands, “Fine,” and backs out of the room, shutting the door behind him before Green can really start chewing at him. What was that about, even? His thoughts try to reason with Green’s point against the last month—but the grumpiness doesn’t add up, and Red chalks it up to Green just being Green. That was usually all it was.

He heads to the kitchen to make himself a cup of tea. There, Red spots the cup he left out for Green that morning pushed back by the kitchen wall. And when he flips open the trash lid to throw out his teabag, he can see a mess of scrambled eggs at the bottom.

Just leftovers, he tells himself. But it nags at him all the same.

 

* * *

  
  


“Dear? What a surprise this is. Daisy told me you went to Kalos, but— _ really, _ have you let your hair get that long?”

The surprise in his mom’s voices falls quickly into disbelief, features narrowing to match. Red frowns at the telephone screen, plucking the strands of his fringe between his fingers. His eyes blur trying to get a look, and he lets it drop. 

“I’ll cut it later.”

“You should treat yourself to a professional. Why,” his mother’s voice begins to brighten, “I’d like to see that. My boy’s hair done by a Kalosian professional!”

He frowns even harder at the screen, and his mother laughs.

The Pokémon Centre is a murmur at his back as Red catches up with his mother, about this, that; it’s mostly questions about Lumiose, and the presents he called to warn her to expect. On the other side of the screen she looks as she always has, hair tied back and wearing a long-sleeved shirt, the house as tidy in the background as he’d suspect to see it. The home phone displays her in a blurry video quality, but he can make out the signs of age in her face despite it. 

“It’s not much, just something small,” he warns her about the presents.

“It’s fine, I’m sure, Red,” she reassures, delight in her voice. “Now tell me, how’s Green? Daisy said you’re staying together?”

“Yeah, he’s....okay,” Red hesitates, rolling his lips. “Busy.”

The word fumbles out of his mouth, and his mother must notice, quiet in thought before she asks, “Is that all?” 

“He’s been...moody lately,” Red says after a moment. “I don’t know why.”

“Have you tried asking him?”

“...No,” he admits. “But he should just tell me. He tells me all the other stuff that annoys him. Stupid stuff, like when I’ve done something wrong.” Like his pronunciation, crumbs missed from the counter top, breathing too loud... 

His mother laughs lightly. “Then this must be something important. Try to bring it up. But you know, it  _ is  _ his birthday soon. —Yes, that’s the face I expected. Do you want help picking a present?”

“Uhh…” His eyes skirt around, trying to think about  _ shit, a birthday present? _   When was the last time he’d bought one?

“I don’t really know,” he finally responds.

“Well, just get whatever feels right, and call me again if you need a hand. Remember,” she chimes, “he’ll need a cake!”

 

* * *

 

Cake, Red can do cake. With the amount of patisseries or your basic supermarket chains around, there were options to choose from. Something pricey, a little pricey, just because Green wouldn’t expect fancy from him; but nothing  _ too _ pricey, because he definitely won’t spend that much on a small bite of food. A selection of small cakes might work, a box they can take somewhere, share with their pokémon. (Okay, that he’ll need to figure out the price for.) 

But they could go on a day trip. Or, a week- _ long _ trip. Hell, it might do wonders for Green’s currently ongoing weird mood.

Red checks a few stores along the way, scooping out his options and peering through windows to judge if he was going to step inside by the price tags on display. He grabs a few pamphlets too when he ends up near the tourist bureau, scanning for ideas. Somewhere they’ve been already, or somewhere new? A few of the leaflets held pictures of towns lost inside forests, promising mountain walks nearby; there was even Dendemille, which sits before a frosty terrain. The icy mountains he never got to.

He hushes up the growing excitement, buzzing at the thoughts of them actually  _ travelling _ . Properly. Alright, half-properly, because his view of proper travelling had an extended time length and off-road routes to Green’s more sensible ( _ boring _ ) choices. 

All the same, the rest of the day gets wasted with battles and hushed planning with his team, who are more than thrilled at the mention of  _ travel;  _ Snorlax not jumping right into sleep, and Charizard’s fire burning up hot, swishing from side to side. 

He wasn’t the only one missing the longs roads. Red heads back to the apartment in a good mood, with plans to  _ subtly  _ ask questions about what Green might be up to in the immediate future. Maybe he could get Kris to help with a small lie. Make up an event to invite him to, and then,  _ taaaa-daaa  _ (as Blue would say), happy birthday, surprise?

Red scoffs, shaking his head at himself when the thought crosses his mind.  _ How goofy is that?  _ The idea was—ridiculous. He didn’t have to keep the trip a secret, or make a big elaborate scene out of it.

But heck. Why not? 

It turned out he would have time to make up his mind about it when he returns to an empty apartment, the bedroom empty too, for once. Not a big deal. Red slips the pamphlets into his translation book—for cover, in case Green catches him—and takes out a notebook to jot, for no real reason, routes from town to town, labelled  _ Easy Mode  _ to  _ Definitely Going to Get Lost Mode _ .

The minutes tick by, turning from after seven pm to nearly eight.

Red takes out his pokégear.

 

_ @red: where are you _

 

_ @red: did you fall into a manhole _

 

He puts it aside to listen out for a response, raiding cupboards in the meantime for their ingredients for an easy dinner of rice and eggs. The white grains soften and the frozen veggies become edible, and it turns a slight brown colour when he throws in a mysterious black liquid into the mix and stirs it in. 

Verdict: Kinda sour, but edible.

Time ticks on from nine o’clock, to after. Red packs the leftovers into the fridge, and retreats into the bedroom with the pokégear sitting under the glow of the bedside table’s lamp. Doubtful he’d get an answer by now, but who the hell knew?

It’s not the gear that wakes him, but a sudden movement—the bed moving, a figure climbing in beside him, one that gives him half a fright before he realises who and what’s going on.

“Where’ve you been?” Red mumbles through sleepiness.

“Out,” comes Green’s muffled response. 

“I texted you.”

“I didn’t get it,” Green responds with delay. Red picks up on it; that, and the tone he’s using—uninterested, dismissive. That mood.

“What’s wrong?”

“What?”

“With you. You’ve been sulking lately.”

Green says nothing, and Red realises that slip of truth probably wasn’t the best to share in getting Green to cooperate. But it’s said and done, so Red tries to make it out as the lighthearted remark he meant, easing himself towards Green with a hand reaching out for his risen shoulder.

But when it slips over near to Green’s chest, the shoulder shrugs sharply, pushing it and Red away.

“I’m trying to sleep,” comes the warning on a breath. Red holds still, then withdraws, settling back into bed awkwardly. Except he lays with no intentions to immediately sleep, and some further need to press on with that talking thing. You know, like his mom suggested.

“What are you doing tomorrow?” Red starts with.

“Stuff.”

“Stuff?” When that gives him nothing, he adds: “What kind of stuff?”

“Why?”

“We haven’t done anything in awhile.” And easily, without prompt, he can pictures train rides with scenic fields rolling with the view, the tiny books in his bag. “We could catch a train somewhere.”

“I don’t have the time.”

Red frowns into the pillow. No time, when he’s been spending all of it in his room? 

“What are you doing? You had exams—” he begins.

But Green cuts him off, his words curt. “I came here to use their catalogues while I’m still enrolled. It’s not just do a few tests and that’s it. I came here to learn something, not screw around like you.”

Annoyance rises in response, and Red bites back. “I dunno, you didn’t mind screwing around before.”

Suddenly, Green makes the bed move as he fidgets in place, adjusting himself pointedly. 

“Just go the hell to sleep, Red.”

Insides simmering, Red moves the same, rolling onto his side to face away from Green, eyes shut to the darkness.

“Night, jackass.”

_ Whatever.  _ No one can say he didn’t try. 

 

* * *

  
  


Red waits up the next morning. He doesn’t bother increasing the volume on the TV to obnoxious levels or making breakfast for Green, still undecided about those eggs he’d seen in the trash the day before. But that’s not the discussion he’s waiting to have, although it could very well come up.

Honestly, there’s a fight ready to be had him in, as cooled over as he might be from last night. Sure, a calm and rational conversation may be more productive, and that’s the plan to start off with; but knowing them, some hair pulling is more likely to be involved before anything involving  _ sensible, normal human discussion. _

Unfortunately for his plan, either of them—that involves him brooding on the couch with folded arms, feigning interest in the TV for a minute or two—Green comes out from the bedroom, goes straight to the bathroom, then heads straight for the front door, leaving with his jacket and without a word or glance Red’s way.

This starts to become a pattern.

It’s not one Red recognises to begin with. He spends the entire day out himself, which isn’t new, but when he comes back around ten at night  after a day of battling, endless wandering, and baby pokémon (thanks Kris), Green is nowhere to be found inside the apartment. 

Red doesn’t bother to stay up, forcing himself to sleep in a bed that sours his already frustrated mood.

The same happens again the next day, except Red doesn’t bother waiting in the morning.  The day after that, he chooses camping before another night waking to a body stony even in its sleep. 

The next, he’s empty of the complaints he’s been rattling off when he has an audience in his pokémon. There’s a hollowness in his stomach, his limbs lethargic. Why is he wasting his time here. What is he doing, camping outside a city just to go back in and do the bare minimum? Battling in the same environment. Life becoming monotonous, dull.

He could just go. He could leave all of it behind, get on with his life. It wasn’t hard to do; moving on was what he did, how he lived. And what was the point in staying when Green was closing himself off completely—refusing to give him a clue to what the hell was even the matter?

It didn’t matter how hard Red racked his brain. There was something he was missing, and Green would do all else before telling him.

But he’d find out just what it was before going anywhere. Red continues to take note of the bakeries he passes, the shops with stones on display, clothing, fancy watches set in rows; the kind of things that might make a good present. A good birthday present. A good something to throw at Green’s face. A box-to-the-face present.

A good excuse to annoy himself by thinking more about that asshole.

Like he needed any more excuses.

 

* * *

 

He’s gotta admit though, he wasn’t suspecting an alakazam to appear before him in thin air. 

Red blinks at the pokémon, who stares back. It stands between him and a cashier, in the midsts of handing over his change and receipt. Alakazam doesn’t appear to notice the hand over his shoulder, holding in its own an envelope that it offers up.

A dumbfounded look shared with the woman, Red slowly accepts to letter with an awkward, “Uh, thanks.” 

The alakazam appears pleased, despite its expression not changing much. With a flick of a finger, they extract the pieces from the woman’s hand, levitating them in a pink glow and into Red’s possession.

“E-excuse me,” the woman stutters, flustered, while Red tries to manage holding the change, the envelope, receipt. He doesn’t have time to question the pokémon, about why it’s there, or why it’s putting a hand on his forearm—

—because the both of them then appear in well-furnished room, red carpeting underfoot and wood panelling walls. Sabrina sits comfortably at the other end by a table, teacup in hand.

“Welcome Red,” she greets calmly. Red stares blankly for a good moment, before looking back to the alakazam.

“Um. My shopping,” he starts.

The alakazam raises its eyes. It nods, blinks out of existence—and returns once more, white bag in hand.

“T...thanks.”

“We thought it would be better to bring you then make you come all the way,” Sabrina explains after their match, the room more intact than his and Blue’s château battle. The interior helped Red cotton onto where they were, and the butler-like figure that entered in earlier on, but quickly exited upon spotting him, face draining of colour.

Because of his clothes or the mess he left last time, who knew.

“It was… different,” Red admits. “It’s fine though. You’re leaving Kalos soon?”

“Yes. I have a feeling something big is going to happen soon… I’d like to prepare back in Kanto.”

“Big?” When it comes to Sabrina, that could mean anything.

“I’m not too sure… but something positive. But,” she goes on, “I knew I had to battle you once before then. And to give you what I put with my letter.”

The letter. He’s been holding onto it the entire time, but doesn’t remember it until then, tucked in the same hand his gift bag hangs off at the wrist. Lifting it to give it a look over, he notices a dented weight at the bottom, pressing creases into the paper of the envelope.

“It has something to do with what happened before, outside the studio. You should keep a hold of it. You can call it… a lucky charm.”

“What is it?”

“A spoon.” She pauses. “Or it was. You’ll see.”

“...”

Alakazam’s teleport isn’t any less bewildering the second time, plopping them around north boulevard, amidst passing shoppers and furfrous. Red examines their surroundings slow and dumb, in an attempt to help his brain catch up with the rest of him, if possible. The institute building is within sight, a stand selling Lumiose Galettes, and his stomach grumbles, reminding him he hasn’t eaten all day.

Sabrina taps her chin with a finger.

“This isn’t the hotel… is there something here?”

“—Ah! Miss Sabrina! Red! What a long time it’s been!”

They both jump, the voice booming over the noise of a passing taxi. A man—tall and muscular, torn sleeves and battered shirt, a bandanna over his head and a belt tight around his waist, stands with fists gripped tightly before him.

“...Karate Master Kiyo,” Sabrina says breathlessly. She straightens where she stands, her arms wrapping themselves around one another.

“This opportunity… it must be fate. What are you doing all the way here?”

“I’m…”

The bush of Kiyo’s eyebrows raise, then slant empathetically. He then bows his head, dropping the rest of his upper body into the gesture.

“Please, forgive my manners! I understand it has been a long time… but if our meeting is too much, then allow me to thank you.”

“Thank me…?” Sabrina repeats. Her alakazam takes a place to her side in a show of support. 

“Your victory over me threw my life astray, but if you hadn’t, then I would have never seen how arrogant I became in my pride. There was still more for me to learn, and even now, there is.”

She raises a hand over her heart, fingers curled, more stunned than Red had been just moments ago. Red doesn’t speak, not wanting to interrupt this moment that isn’t his. But wonders if for a second he should, when Kiyo stays bowed, and she stands frozen.

But her mouth shifts, pulling into the smallest of smiles.

“I wouldn’t say that I was much better, when I challenged your dojo,” she admits.

Kiyo laughs—a soft laugh for him, but still hearty as he lifts himself. “Yes, you were a cold young woman… but I can see from here how much you’ve changed. The look in your eyes is happier—” and he smiles brighter, saying that “—and I’ve heard that your gym became a great community for people with talents like your own.”

“Yes,” she says, softly. “That was always our goal.”

“Then I’m glad, Miss Sabrina.”

There’s a hitch in Kiyo’s voice, joined by tears collecting in the corner of his eyes. But Red isn’t watching him; instead, he’s fixated on a sight he hadn’t noticed before, and so strangely bizarre against the touching scene playing out before him.

He pops his head back up, making sure he wasn’t about to interrupt anyone. And with the coast clear:

“Sabrina. Have you ever learned how to roller skate?” 

“Roller skate…?” 

Red grins. He nods at Kiyo. “Kiyo, why don’t you show her your moves?”

Kiyo brightens instantly. “Aha, of course! Sabrina, you should learn the way of the wheels!”

He kicks out a foot. A small, harsh noise sounds, and Sabrina looks to the source: and there, indeed, she spots the pair of white roller skates the karate king has been wearing this entire time.

She bursts into laughter, head knocking back.

“Yes, please! Show me!”

 

* * *

  
  


Kiyo invites him and Sabrina to check out his new dojo space in the city, but Red takes a raincheck. First came catching Green, and also the difficult task of finally picking a cake. That Gree  _ didn’t  _ deserve, but was either a good guilting tool, food-for-himself tool, or shove-in-Green’s-face tool.

Of course, when Red gets to the apartment, the door is locked. He rings the doorbell and knocks, but hears nothing on the other side.

With the way it’s been the past week or so, it’s hardly a surprise. But it’s raining outside, and sleeping in that and with a box of fancy cake is the last Red wants to do. He shoots off a message to Green’s gear ( _ when you coming back _ ), then heads to the lower ground, rain pattering on his arm and face as he examines the upper levels of the complex.

He has an idea.

Scrambling after each jump to dig claws into the brick wall, Pikachu fumbles his way to the fourth row. Red’s torn: between keeping watch of the alley, and being ready to catch a falling intruder.

Breaking and entering’s a better option than hoping for a timely response from Green.

“Is it—” He bites his tongue, but quickly discards any care about getting caught. “Make sure it’s the right one!” 

There’s no reply as Pikachu jumps from the balcony edge, lost from Red’s view. He clears aside the fringe beginning to cling to his skin ( _ “hair cut,” _ he hears his mom chide softly), and finally, after a minute or so comes the chattering of squeaks from above, Pikachu’s head poking out from the gaps of the stone design.

The front door’s not open by the time Red gets upstairs. There’s a thump, a squeak, and when he tries the door handle again—trying not to act suspicious, which usually makes one suspicious—it opens, with Pikachu darting out of the way of the door’s swing.

Red’s welcomed to an empty apartment, devoid of life and light. He fumbles a hand along the side of the wall until he meets with a switch, and Pikachu chirps as the living room brightens, taking a spot on top of the sofa while Red carries bags hanging from his hands into the kitchen. He leaves the cake on the side, but opens the fridge to deposit some beers—the same brand Green got them in Ambrette. A spur of the moment decision, to go with a cake he wasn’t all that sure that Green would accept.

But it wouldn’t matter until tomorrow— _ if  _ he caught Green for once.

 

* * *

  
  
  


Except Green doesn’t come back that night.

Red doesn’t realise this straight away. He spends the night on the couch, and gives the bedroom a wide berth when he cleans up for the morning, doing the usual routine that he’s come to learn out of habit. Put on the kettle, take out the milk, check how much feed is left for the pokémon (not much, they’ll need to restock) and make a breakfast of whatever he fancies. The TV goes on to give the room some life, and then he waits, feeling occasionally at a box in his pocket, the one containing the birthday cake sitting on the counter.

An hour pasts. The timer in the corner of the breakfast show tells Red exactly when it’s been that long, and when it hits 10AM, he walks over to the bedroom, poking his head through the door.

The bed sits empty inside, an unmade mess.

“Great,” he mutters under his breath.

Closing the door, Red prepares himself to figure out the rest of the day.  What he doesn’t figure out is what’s happened—not until the next day, when he sees the empty bed again the in the morning, and realises the cluttered shape of the sheets hasn’t changed.

And it’s the same the next day. Red sends messages to Kris and Blue, but neither have heard anything when they get back to him.

 

_ @blue: maaaayyybe he went on a trip? _

 

_ @red: he didnt say anything _

 

_ @blue: do you think hes been kidnapped? _

_ @blue: i guess that couldve happened _

 

_ @red: do you think so _

 

_ @blue: his granddad IS famous _

_ @blue: hes good at battling but all you need to do is bonk someone on the head and theyre out _

_ @blue: or even sleep powder them _

_ @blue: ive had to do that before _

_ @blue: not to murder anyone or anything _

 

_ @blue: anyway let me know when you find him! _

 

_ \--- _

 

_ @red: should i call the police _

 

_ @kris: Huh? _

_ @kris: I’m not sure… _

_ @kris: Give it a couple more days and see. I’ll help you.  _

 

_ @red: blue said someone couldve kidnapped him _

_ @red: what if they did _

 

_ @kris: Blue has a wild imagination. _

_ @kris: I’m sure he’s fine. Let’s wait awhile, and if he isn’t back by the end of the week then we’ll get the police involved, okay? _

_ @kris: Green used to go out on trips all the time before. _

_ @kris: Is there any reason he wouldn’t tell you? _

 

_ @red: we havent been talking _

 

_ @kris: well… I’m sure it’s okay.  _

_ @kris: I’ll send him a message and give him a call too. _

 

_ @red: okay _

_ @red: thanks _

  
  
  


Kidnapping hadn’t even crossed his mind. 

Now, it won’t leave it.

It’s stupid, it’s dumb, there’s no way, no. Green’s pokémon would obliterate anyone who’d dare touch a hair on their trainer’s head, and Green would have no remorse for the individual. It was a dumb road to go down, and he was only thinking about it because Blue had mentioned it. Not because of any likelihood.

_ But all you need is to bonk someone on the head and they’re out.  _

Except that’s the problem with time, and having too much of it. Red searches the streets of Lumiose, every corner that he can reach and over again, and then once more until the street lamps pop on. He checks his pokégear, tries to check Green’s laptop—what if there’s some clue there? But he doesn’t get as far as login screen and ditches that idea. He falls asleep that night, telling himself:  _ You’ll see. He’ll be back tomorrow and you’ll be glad you didn’t leave any stupid messages on his gear. _

But the next day comes, and Green still hasn’t returned.

 

_ @red: are you dead _

 

Murder to Red seems more likely before abduction. Except it’s a city, not the wild, so probably not.

Red keeps the TV set to a new channel when he’s in the apartment, buys the newspapers to flick through, pretending that there’s nothing really he’s searching for while going through each page. He reminds himself not to be a moron. There’s no way it’s murder or abduction. 

Was this what it was like for his mom, being at home, years without a call to know how he was?

“Lapras,” he says under his breath, dipping his forehead into her neck, hands around the back, “I’m being a dumbass.”

She coos softly close to his ear, the weight of her chin coming to rest on the top of his head.

He tells himself that Green’s just gone travelling, and he knows it’s the more likely case. But the  _ maybe  _ lingers anyway, and so does he, waiting.   
  


* * *

 

 

Suddenly, the apartment door opens and shuts. Red jumps from the couch, snapping round—and there was Green, walking into the living space from the passageway. Alive, clean; far from the point of death or harm, a rucksack on arm.

_ “Where’ve you been?”  _ tumbles from his mouth, words spilling into each other, scrambling for a quicker answer. There had meant to be anger; Red had pictured it well after giving up on the idea he could feign not caring, but it was relief painting his words first.

Meanwhile, Green slings the bag to the wall, rolling at his shoulder.

“What’s it to you?” Green answers casually, peeling next at his jacket. “Decided to take a trip.”

“And turn off your pokégear?”

“I thought I’d take a cue out of your book. Pretty nice, actually. Went hiking the long way round, treated myself to some good food, better drinks. Kinda reminded me what it was like not having some guy leeching off me everyday.”

Red stares at him, the initial relief beginning to tear. He’s _ mocking _ him, after everything? After the days spent waiting, wondering.

His fists clench, voice hitching in disbelief.

“Why are you being such an ass?”

“An _ ass? Me?  _ After I’ve let you stay in my place, translated for you—practically  _ babysat  _ you over here?” Green kicks off the shoe already hanging from his foot, smacking it into the wall behind him. The other comes off and he scoffs, throwing Red an incredulous look before heading to the sink. “Last time I checked, you’re the one who shows up in  _ my  _ life and does whatever the hell he pleases. Hell, I thought I’d be lucky and you’d be gone by the time I came back.”

“You  _ disappeared. _ ”

“Awww, did you get worried?” Gushing water pours in as Green continues, filling up his glass. “I’ve lived my life  _ fine _ without you around, Red, I know how to take care of myself. — _ Please _ , don’t stand there looking like I did anything wrong. Seriously, why should you care? I don’t owe you anything. Remember?”

He approaches the kitchen island, sitting the glass down with a clink, hands spreading out on the surface to rest. The look in his eye is unnerving—locking Red in, refusing him the ability to turn away.

“I’m just the guy you mooch off and fuck once in a while. And I’m getting tired of it. So how about you go on your way already, yeah? You overstayed your welcome weeks ago.”

He takes the glass back in his hand, tipping his head for a drink that ends in a gasp and a slap of lips. It goes with him round to the other side of the kitchen counter, leaving into the bedroom, and then left there while Green walks back out and into the bathroom.

Red watches him, unmoving. Hands unfurled, mind blank; the wild emotion in his body dulled or gone, one or the other. He doesn’t know which, but he can tell a change—a change in the room, and his place in it moments before. Agitated, annoyed, but comfortable.

Now—now, there was a pressure. Pushing in on him, ringing inside his head a message:

 

**_Get out._ **

  
  
  
  
  


He’s gone before Green emerges from his shower.

  
  


* * *

  
  
  


_ “Sina.” _

_ “Oh—Red? Are you here to see the professor?” _

_ “Mm… actually, can you give him these?” _

_ “Ah. Are you leaving? … Did someone die?” _

_ “N— no.” _

_ “Whoops! Forget I said that. Are you sure you don’t want to see him? I bet he’d like to say good bye.” _

_ “I’m not good at good-byes. Tell him thanks though.” _

_ “I guess I can do that. You go and take a vacation! You look like you can do with one.” _

_ “See you.” _

_ “Bon voyage, Red! Send a postcard!” _


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i thought this was going to be eight chapters long once.

_‘About time we left that wimpy settlement.’_

_‘Wimpy? It wasn’t all bad.’_

_‘It had some perks, but I agree with the sentiment. It was draining Red. He shouldn’t have stayed.’_

_‘But he wanted to be with Green!’_

_‘Hmph, what about what_ **_we_ ** _wanted.’_

_‘Your stomach didn’t complain.’_

_‘Shut up.’_

_‘Heh.’_

_‘...He’s still_ **_down_ ** _.’_

Each of them cast their sights onto Charizard—always so quiet, always catching them off-guard—with her head hung low, and then where their trainer sleeps, sealed inside his tent. The night is quiet beyond them, and the remnants of a campfire dying into burnt red wood in its pile.

Snorlax snorts thickly, the sound comparable to the rumbling of his belly.

 _‘He’ll get over it,’_ he dismisses.

 _‘But what if he doesn’t?’_ protests Pikachu.

 _‘Could’ve kept the stone,_ ’ Blastoise adds as a disappointed aside.

 _‘You should count yourself lucky for the opportunity,’_ sniffs Lapras.

 _‘Jealous?’_ Blastoise grins. Lapras harrumphs quietly and says too quickly, _‘_ **_No._ ** _’_

Venusaur nudges Pikachu with the end of her snout, curled in a ball beside herself and Snorlax.

_‘Give him time. He’ll need our support.’_

Snorlax grumbles for the last word, but adds nothing else.  
  


* * *

 

What the hell did it matter, anyway? They were finally in the wild again—fresh air, normal sights, less noisy humans around to disturb them—and all the rest of them wanted to do was to waste energy talking about the spiky human boy.

Bah. Who even liked the guy. Not him. If anyone asked him—and they should, because he was the only one with some damn sense around here apparently—then they’d know that some bastard who’d leave you without a second thought and laugh in your face about it wasn’t worth upsetting your stomach about.

But no one had told that to Tiny Cheeks.

 _‘Doesn’t this feel all wrong?’_ Pikachu whines at his feet. _‘I know we really wanted to see something new… but I don’t know if we should’ve left.’_

Snorlax pulls another yard of bramble from their entwined mess, crunching down on the sweet tang of over-ripened buk berries. A taste of sweet nature.

 _‘Who cares what that human thought,’_ he slurs out from between his mouthfuls. ‘ _The city was trash. Nothing good but the food. Better off without him.’_

 _‘But Snorlax, they’re friends!’_ Pikachu squeaks insistently. _‘He means a lot to Red!’_

Snorlax snorts _. ‘He doesn’t need him. Life was better when we travelled.’_

Pikachu hops to his shoulder, ignoring the selection of berries and greens around them in the forest for this dumb conversation. _‘But there were good times too in the city.’_

_‘Like what.’_

_‘The battles? You and Rhyperior had a bunch of fun! Red and Green had fun too. And there was Kris! And Blue! The other humans! But Red and Green, they’re just…’_

_‘Idiots._ ’ Snorlax waves a paw for another section of the shrubbery, the plant snapping with a llight tug of his arm. He stuffs it all into his maw without delay. _‘Wasting our time.’_

 _‘Everything’s going to be okay! It will be!’_ The voice has moved—Pikachu has, down on the ground with his tiny cheeks puffed. _‘You’ll see!’_

And he scarpers off, to annoy some other part of the forest they were sleeping in for the night. Whatever, as long as he didn’t get bitten by an ariados. Snorlax gorges on the brambles of the bluk berry until all at arm’s length has been devoured into his stomach, squashing at more thoughts about this—stupidity. Idiocy. This _human stuff._ They never had to deal with this on the road. Never had to deal with anyone irritating them so _badly._

His empty paws squeeze, his teeth grinding for the lack of food. He’s more than hungry—he’s ravenous, a mouth in his stomach calling to be fed, wanting to be filled completely. Snorlax stands to see how much of the plant still exists, and spots the mass of it still tangled some yards away, tangling with the wild grass hoping to climb as high as the trees.

He can eat it all. He _will_ eat it all.

With heavy steps, Snorlax maneuvers with outstretched paws, impatient to take it in his hungry paws, his demanding mouth. He tears at grass, shoving it into the gaping hole on his face. In it goes, strands that miss amassing on his rounding belly, and he grabs at more, narrowly missing a bellsprout that wobbles as it gurgles out of danger.

 _To hell with him. To hell with it all. What did Cheeks know? It was Spiky’s fault to begin with—Red did nothing wrong. Spiky was the one who left_ **_him._ ** _Laughed at him. Laughed at_ **_them._ ** _Hurt their trainer. His trainer. No one_ **_laughed at them._ **

The roots gasp as they’re pulled from the ground, limbs trailing farther, farther, deeper into the ground; but Snorlax persists. Eat it all, devour it all. He leans in, pawing until he finally retrieves the dirtied heart of it, stuffing it deep into waiting space between his teeth.

He bites down, and the weight of his own gluttony tumbles his down into the bed of vines and mud, down in the stream that the vines hide under the blanket of their growth.

It takes half an hour for Red to find him trapped in the stream, coated in a dripping grey layer from paw to paw, his thrashings brought down to whines. But it takes just as long for him to finally get out, Red backtracking to get the rest to help him out, and Red refuses him sleep before washing out the drying dirt from his fur.

_All that bastard’s fault. Not his._

_Not his._

  


* * *

This was what travelling again was going to be, huh. Everyone down in the mud (‘specially Snorelord, heh), no more oceans for miles. Probably. Looked like it. It was a mountain with a bunch of streams and woods. Oceans weren’t on top of mountains. He knew that.

Oh well. Nothing they could do about it. Pikapal was getting all electric up about it, Snores was huffing and gruffing. Him? Didn’t see what difference it made. Kinda weird to see everyone get so worked up. Snore had to be the biggest surprise—wouldn’t even agree to help him and Spicy catch some fish to eat.

Typical. He was just snoring away with his back to them, Red’s tent and all those human things near his head. Like he even cared about protecting Blastoise had watched with some amusement to begin with, the snoring deep inside Snorlax’s belly probably weird enough to keep most of the pokémon from coming over this way. Anything sensible, anyway. Who’d go searching for the source of that noise? Not him. He had brains and sense not to bother with that mess.

Unfortunately, it had the goldeen and seaking in the lake in high alarm under him, with every rumbling groan he exhaled. The water would ripple, and any fat seaking in Blastoise’s line of sight would be gone in an instance.

Blastoise lifts his head back out from the water, seeing Lapras’s head already turned sternly towards their gluttonous friend.

 _‘Snorlax’s being a real bastard, huh,’_ Blastoise calls over their distance, a small pool between them. Lapras swings her head back round, eyeing the waters around her as she moves softly along its surface.

 _‘You would think he’s the only one affected in all this,’_ she sniffs.

_‘No point thinking about it. Better to just get moving. Would be more fun.’_

_‘Humans aren’t quite that simple,’_ she points out smartly, the way she always talks. She takes another glance at Snorlax. _‘Or anyone.’_

Blastoise tips his head, making bubbles collect along the water’s surface with a heavy snort. Lapras’s mouth twists, his exact intention. It never fails to look funny to him when she does that.

 _‘Nothing else to do but get on with it,’_ he says again. _‘Not that bad. Can’t do anything now. We’re gone. Looks like moving on to me.’_

 _‘If you want to look at it that way,’_ Lapras replies cryptically. Blastoise furrows his brow, trying to decipher it while she continues on _. ‘Shouldn’t you know better? You got to connect with him.’_

 _‘Jealous?_ ’ There goes her face again. Heh. _‘He’ll be fine.’_

Her stern face is fixed on him, and he stares back, but she says nothing before submerging herself back into the waters below. Blastoise follows, the vibrations of another snore tickling his tail some of the way down.

They get a good catch despite all the added nuisance. Weather’s getting cold, and all seaking love to show off when it’s cold. Got some sexy goldeen mates to impress. Miss Spicy’s icy moves are always good for hunting too, but he’s not gonna say she got more than him. His catches were fatter. All the same, he’s got to ask her sometime to teach him how to spike things.

Or not. Don’t want to get on the intimate side of that, heh.

Red appreciates the haul, fixing some of the fish for cooking, plans to save the leftovers for their journey around the mountain. Got a long way to keep going, he says. He’s down, but he still talks a lot. All lifeless words. Even he can tell that much, even if he isn’t as smart as Lapras is.

But he isn’t dumb. He knows they’re like this because Red’s like this. But what is he supposed to do? Lapras thinks he should be able to tell something because of those stones they had—but remembering they’re gone is no fun. It bums him out. Reminds him how it felt: in battle, out of it, the look in Red’s eyes, his smile. Human’s got a good smile. He likes that smile. But that smile isn’t here right now.

All that’s there—is a quiet beach, suffering a drought. That’s what it’s like, to him. Nothing but dry sand, and they’re travelling through it without a drop of water. It’s not like he doesn’t try to reach out to Red. He stares at him sometimes, calls out to him like he used to be able to do. Go: _Hey. Hey buddy. It isn’t that bad._

_Hey._

_You thought everything was fine. Then it turned out it wasn’t. Everyone’s got ideas but you._

_Not me. Not like Lapras. Ain’t thinking about everything all the time. Don’t know how to._

_Guess I’m in the same waters as you. Only know you gotta keep moving. That’s just life._

_You’ll do what you’ve gotta do. I know that._

And sometimes, Red looks at him, like him heard him over the nothing, or he just knew a big ol’ sea guy like him staring at him—and he smiles. But it isn’t the smile he wants to see. It’s an empty beach.

Guess everyone is stuck in the mud, huh. A blastoise too.  


 

* * *

It doesn’t _have_ to be like this!

He couldn’t fathom why no one would listen to him. It was so simple—just go back, just apologise. If something so bad happened that shocked Red, then what other solution was there? Didn’t they hold out so long just to stay with Green? There were a hundred ways to make everything better, but they were still here in these woods, just climbing!

Snorlax didn’t want to listen anymore, Blastoise just shrugged, Lapras—she was the clever one, and he knew he had to make Red listen first like she said, but it didn’t matter how many times he tried to get Red to go back down the mountain, if he nipped at his legs or took his hat and refused to keep on walking. He couldn’t keep it up with the way Red would look at him. He couldn’t do it.

Too many moons and suns had come and gone. Was Red really going to leave all that hard work without a fight?

_‘All we’ve got to do is see Green again, they’ll argue, make-up— You can fly him on your back! Put him in your teeth! Send him back around!’_

Charizard won’t meet his eye—and a hard thrash sends Pikachu flying, tumbling him amongst the browning leaves. He clambers back onto his hind legs, and spots the vines positioned in the air from Venusaur’s back. His opponent. The one he should be watching. Battling because he’s getting too excited, or something. It doesn’t matter. It’s not important.

 _‘It’s not that simple, Pikachu,’_ Venusaur answers calmly. Pikachu whines to hear the familiar answer, and the bolts run incessantly across his body and the next one comes along. _‘They need time,’_ she continues.

_‘They’ve had time! What if there’s too much time? What if—’_

He catches this time as green leaves slice through the air to where he stands, yelling loudly as the burst of the electricity already spilling out from his body shoots them off-course. Smoke fills the air, twitching his sensitive nose. This too is a familiar smell, clinging already to the ends of his fur. His body is hot. His head is so, so hot.

_‘You need to calm down, Pikachu.’_

_‘You can’t just leave and do nothing,’_ he reasons, _calmer_ , biting down on the boiling in his body. _‘You won’t make up if you don’t see each other. Talk about the good times! Remember why you were happy!’_

But the conversation ends as pitifully as this entire mess when Venusaur causes the ground to crack, shatter, and explode beneath him with a single great leg. The pressure in his body begins to subside with the fading of his strength, but he isn’t glad when Venusaur cradles him into her vines, taking them back to camp. He isn’t happy. He isn’t freed.

_Why? Why can’t it be that simple? Why am I the only one trying?_

He tries once more, circling the tent that Red sleeps in, rods buried into the ground and the soft material that protects him. He gnaws at the ribbons keeping it down, but gets caught easily by the loud huff to his back.

Charizard allows him to scarper off, and he climbs the highest tree, burning his frustrations into the bark until there’s nothing but singed wood and the autumn cold. Him? There’s nothing. There’s nothing he can do.

They’ve never been a hopeless group before. Now, it’s all they are.  


 

* * *

She understands.

It’s just hard. All of it. Everything. You want to do something, but you can’t. You don’t know what to do. You hurt. Everything is out of place, everything you can’t control. One minute you’re angry, then you say you don’t care. You try not to care. You don’t want to care.

But you care, a lot. You always care. You hurt because you care. Can’t make good decisions. What comes next? She doesn’t know. But it still hurts. It’s scary. Whatever you do matters. You don’t want to pick wrong. She hates these kinds of decisions. But she’s not the one making them. Red is. Not Pikachu, not Snorlax. Red.

She doesn’t know what happened. Red was worried. Green left. Then Green came back. Red was shocked. ‘We’re going on a trip finally,’ he told them. They were looking for something. He talks about it, talks a lot. The talking might help. She listens, but she knows it doesn’t matter where they’re heading. His inner voice is quiet when he talks about plans. When he doesn’t, it’s louder. The voice they all care about.

It used to be as defensive as Snorlax. Then more like Blastoise. As frantic as Pikachu.

Now it’s quiet. A hurt bared to the elements, loud to her senses in this cold late night.

Charizard rubs at the flimsy fabric of where Red goes to sleep, snorting to let him know—she knows he’s awake.

“Charizard?”

His voice is quiet, bubbled by the tent. The entrance to his sleeping place opens like a claw parting at soft dirt in the ground, tumbling down with a soft yet slicing hiss. On the other side, Red blinks wearily out into the dark, his face lit along the sides by the glimpse of her tail fire.

 _‘Red.’_ She pokes in her head inside, nudging at the side of his head, his face, catching at the soft skin of his cheek.

_Let’s sleep together. Like we used to. I’m here for you._

“Hey,” he mumbles to her rubbing, a hand slipping along the other side of her snout. “Can’t you sleep? I can put you back...” His voice hitches; and he holds, waiting, for the heaviness in his throat to subside.

“Let me get out,” he finally says.

She moves back, curling her tail to be his light where the campfire has long died. A wind passes through as Red emerges half-bent from his sleep, causing a shiver as he drags his sleeping bag with him and closer to her belly.

It’s just them, Snorlax, and Blastoise. Neither of the other two stir as she coaxes her trainer to place his bag down between herself and near to Snorlax, using as a barrier from the cold while she brings her tail to be a fire at his feet.

And then, a wing over his body, as close as they would be when they braved the chills of Mt. Silver together. That he be closer, him curled into her body, like a young might. But she always felt the younger even now, between them both.

Red touches one of her claws, nestling his head close to it. She hears that inner voice, before she hears the one that speaks in human tongue:

_I’ve always got you._

“Night, Charizard.”

Charizard leans her neck towards him, ignoring the discomfort of her tucked in limbs to be as near to him as she can get.

No matter his choices… he will always have her.

That’s all any of them can offer.  
  


* * *

They won’t be following the river from here. It leads into its own valley, a dip in the mountains that they need to continue into. Red is making sure to let them stay to enjoy it before they begin the hike deeper into the forests still nestled over the climbing terrain, but she can see that Lapras is far from enjoying the last time in a while she’ll be able to get her fins wet.

They’ve all had that look to them though, in their own ways. Lost in their own thoughts. Not looking outward, but in.

Lapras finally notices Venusaur, but turns away without lingering on her.

 _‘What do you see us doing?’_ Lapras asks.

 _‘I don’t know,’_ Venusaur admits. _‘Red doesn’t know, yet.’_

_‘Snore continues to be agitated, Blastoise is comfortable in his shell on the whole thing, and Zappy’s—well, his silence is as troublesome as his running around was to insist everyone everything was fine. Everyone’s a mess.’_

_‘And you?’_

_‘What can I do?’_ Lapras sniffs. _‘This is out of my area. Red has to make a choice. But if he doesn’t make one soon, either Zappy or Snore will short circuit, mark my words.’_

_‘He will. It was always going to take time.’_

_‘Age old words.’_ There’s a hint of sarcasm, discreet, but she knows Lapras well not to miss it. She doesn’t fault her for it. Everyone has their limits, and even Lapras was reaching hers, despite her more sensible approach.

 _‘Red and Green have always been...complicated,’_ she begins to explain, trodding along to the water’s edge piled by pebbles and jagged stone, finding a place to rest her feet. Lapras was one of the last; her knowledge of the two humans wasn’t quite the same as the rest of them. _‘Silly rivalry. It was overwhelming when Red and I first came together, but it was exhilarating, too. We’ve always been different, but I loved his heart from the start. But those two—they would push and shove, and Green would leave him when Red always wanted a little more. There were no hanging out with those two. It’s why he was so hesitant about Green’s actions when we first came here. Making excuses to meet,’_ she reminds with a rugged chuckle.

 _‘Oh, yes,’_ Lapras begins to remember. _‘When we went to the sea, after we met the loud one.’_

_‘Nice time. We don’t visit the ocean as often as we should.’_

_‘This has been a decent change though. Or was.’_

_‘Yes, well… I would tell you more about them, but the problem is, Red’s always been careful when it comes to Green. Guarded. Green is a little different from the other humans he meets. He is,’_ she muses, _‘one of the few he’s ever really known.’_

And that made everything more difficult before easier.

They all spoke a different language, in the end. Even humans, to one another.

The help she could offer was limited. Sometimes, it was a presence beside him on the aimless treks.

“We came here for Mega Evolution,” Red’s voice cuts into the silence, nothing else but the whistle and whispering of the winds passing between the bodies of trees otherwise. His words matter-of-factly, insistent; he was telling her, the woods, himself, anything and anyone that would believe him. Pikachu might’ve heard him farther on, scoping out for trouble and keeping an eye out for the odd berry plants; but he wasn’t naive enough to believe it.

Red kicks at the dead leaves defiantly, ruining tranquillity, adding an emphasis to when he continues. “I don’t care. It wasn’t— you know. I didn’t—”

He comes to a stop, staring maybe holes into the dirt, before resuming his heavy pace. For reasons more than just the gear on his back, Venusaur knew.

She had heard him, the words he didn’t say aloud:

_What do I want? Does it matter anymore?_

“It’s easier when it’s just us,” he goes on. Despite his words, he jumps when he feels her slip a vine around his hand, looking back at her with surprise.

 _‘But you don’t want just us,’_ she groans, meeting his eyes while she has them. He stares back at her, frozen like the hold of her vine on him is more grounding than it is.

She then lets him go as he pulls away, gaining a quicker pace, nothing but his back facing her. Until he pauses, and says without turning:

“I don’t know, Saur.”

He continues on, but eventually waits for her to catch up.

 

* * *

The confrontation finally happens with a jabbing at Red’s shoulder he first mistakes for a tree branch.

But it’s coming from the front rather than the back  where the tree is, and raising his head informs Red of the true culprit in the shape of Snorlax, staring right back down at him.

Snorlax jabs at him again with a grunt, and then again, and again—

“Cut it out—” The hand he puts up fails to deter Snorlax from jabbing another time, but he stops anyway, growling even louder, making sounds twisted between a yawn and a bark.

Pikachu’s squeaks can’t be mistaken behind Snorlax, sparks crackling at his cheeks, and even Charizard has gotten up, her harsher growls getting Snorlax to turn. He growls from deep in his stomach, and Charizard snaps her jaws, thrusting her head towards him that he meets with a snapping of his own.

“Enough! Both of you! All of you!”

Their anger quells, but not without Snorlax making sounds low under his breathing—which is silenced with a sudden flash of red that fills Red’s vision, before the large pokémon is knocked sideways with a deafening crash, shrieking battle cries filling Red’s ear drums then after.

A red shape turns to him, yellow eyes, slender face, the snap of a claw— _scizor._ Red doesn’t see what that snap meant when a burst of orange flames send the pokémon reeling back, bringing into frame a scyther with a blade raised for the exposed elongated neck that Charizard has presented, missing only when the pokémon itself is thrown aside by an the icy fist from Blastoise.

Chattering fills their enclosed space from all around, even above; and Red scrambles away from the tree behind him when he spots the scyther peering down at him, taking his place as he moves centre, his pokémon—all but Snorlax—surrounding him.

Six scyther, possibly, one scizor. The scizor maybe the leader by the first move.

The mouths of the scizor’s claws open wide, exposing the gaping black holes within. And then they snap down, and the scythers swarm in.

Red falls to Snorlax’s low level, a storm of fire and leafs and swirling whirlpools of water throwing out in every other direction. Scythers and scizors are physical fighters, in need to get close, deadly if they do. One manages to get its scythe into the shell of Blastoise, but trapping itself for the attempt, knocked back and out when Pikachu latches to its back and unloads electricity under its wings.

None of them want to test Charizard’s flames, but two are working to keep her attention while the others do their best elsewhere. Not that her flames could safely aid her teammates with their bodies in the way, but it doesn’t stop her from spewing a fire ball into the face of one slicing into Venusaur’s leafs and coming too close to her head.

The scizor shrieks and raises a claw, and all of the still-standing scyther move back, those lagging eventually joining their ranks. Charizard, Venusaur, Blastoise, Lapras and Pikachu watch in defensive at the pokémon, locked in a choice. Was it that? A choice? Or was it a pause before a change in tactics? Scyther and scizor attacked in swarms, and the coming winter would be better prepared with food. Was this meant to be a warning? Or the more severe?

Red swallows thickly as he watches the scizor, his hands around Snorlax’s head protectively, unable to get a read on such an impassive figure.

For whatever reason there was behind the attack, the scizor swings out its claw backwards—a signal to leave as the scyther begin to make their swift departure. The scizor leaves last, making sure that none of Red’s pokémon follow its group. In first, out last. All of their kind, no matter the region, apparently lead by their pride.

They keep quiet, waiting, listening, even as the forest returns to a silence. It’s Pikachu who makes the first sound, a whine as he hops over to stand before Snorlax’s knocked over form. The rest of the pokémon turn and crowd around their teammate, following in their concerns.

It doesn’t take long for Snorlax to wake. What takes more is the effort for him to sit back up, but he’s fine, if with a fragile pride for the bump on his face and the fussing of Venusaur and Lapras. He grunts at the attempts to breathe icy breath onto the side of his face, batting at the thin sheet of it that clings to the back of his paw.

Red sits up from where he kneels before Snorlax, rubbing the other side of his face, pushing away the specks of dirt and dead leaf hanging off his fur. The pokémon falls silent, turning his head into a quiet stare towards his trainer.

“I’m sorry,” Red mutters. His hand lingers onto his face, then falls down to the protruding lump of his belly, resting lightly over its bulging mass.  “I wanted this the entire time we were in Lumiose; me, you, us, travelling like we always do. But we haven’t enjoyed any of it. None of you have been happy. Because of me. I’ve been bringing you guys down. It’s my fault.”

Snorlax whines defiantly, huffing inbetween. But Red shakes his head.

“It was going to turn out like this eventually. He thought we were _together_. I didn’t even see it. And staying there, being miserable— How did I miss it? How many times did it come up? When he told me, I thought—”

Red falls back onto his legs, staring into Snorlax’s fur. Into their last encounter, all the way back to Kiloude, half-asleep with the smell of flowers in his mind.

_So... about what Blue said?_

_Spit it out…. Dating?_

Dating.

He hadn’t thought about it once.

“I thought it was a joke.”

Because he never thought it was anything serious. Because why would he—him, Green, them, dating. Because what did that mean, to date someone? If he’d known, maybe he wouldn’t have left that day when Green told him to. He could’ve stayed on the couch waiting for Green to come out, agreed to date, patched everything up, call Green a loser. Everything might be better again, or on the way.

But the concept was as bewildering then as it still was, now.

And now, he didn’t know _what_ they were.  


* * *

They continue their trek with a subdued energy for the next three days, the chaos that they had each been carrying soothed; possibly by Red beginning to speak honestly in their down times.

“I didn’t want to lose him, so I just...left. It was a lot, you know? One moment I was mad at him, then he was talking about sex and dating—um,” he pauses, snapping a look to each of them. “Ignore that other word. Dating. The word before that.”

There’s a snort. Red fails to find the one to glare at, and gives up, ears warming.

“Whatever. Look, the thing is now…. Well,” he says after a longer pause, “I don’t _know_ what now. He probably hates my guts. That’s nothing new. Or it is, but it doesn’t feel like it.”

Least to say, it wasn’t the most important part of the list of problems between the pair of them currently.

“For one,” he goes into on another day, Charizard keeping in pace with him and Venusaur and Pikachu farther along, “it’s not like he even _said_ we were dating. Did he think we were dating? Or did he want to date? How was I supposed to know? I was half asleep that night, couldn’t he have asked me about it when we got back?” Get down on one knee, pop the question. Wedding ring, matching couple’s shirts.

—ugh, did his mind have to go there? There comes the heat, and Red hurries to ignore it. “What’s dating anyway? Hold hands, go out, buy chocolates? I don’t remember him ever buying me chocolates. Anyway, I went everywhere with him. He wouldn’t even go camping with me. What kind of dati…”

He fails to finish, the figure he’d looked over to see gone from his side completely. Up ahead is Charizard, caught up with the other two, Venusaur groaning in conversation about something or another with her.

_“Hey, what the hell!”_

So much for _BFFs forever._

Blastoise doesn’t bother to feign interest when he takes over carrying the camping gear from Charizard. Which doesn’t upset Red much, the honesty at least nice. Just as long as he has someone slow enough for him to pretend to be talking to, which has been a far less stressful task than organising everything inside his own head. Snorlax’s started again to prefer sleeping than plodding along day in and day out in the mountains, so he gets shoved out of his ball just because Red can, and Lapras escapes it all by not having the body for mountaineering in the first place.

As for Pikachu—”You were overheating from squeaking at everyone every day, now you don’t wanna listen to me?”

The electric traitor whines with exhaustion mockingly, before running off into the crowding trees, leaving Red to chew the inside of his cheeks.  

“Can you believe it, Venusaur? I don’t have any friends out here.”

She groans at him, too happily a sound for what he just said.

Snorlax bumps into the third tree in the past hour, his skills in sleep walking lacking.

_“Ugh.”_

At least he wasn’t in a school.

There’s an eruption of squeaking, small and yellow yet colourful, and then the darting figure of Pikachu comes back into view. He waves his paws, wiggling them in the direction he just came, before bolting off once more. Red—checking on Snorlax one last time, who’s given up on the ‘walking’ part of his upright sleep—hurries his steps to see what the fuss is about. Which better be for good reason, when Pikachu won’t even listen to _his_ important ramblings—

It is. His inner complaints come to an end as a wash of blueish white enters the otherwise repeating canvas of forest browns, taking the form of a leafless tree.

The most strangest tree he had to have ever seen, and not because it was a misfit amongst all the others that surrounded it, or nearly, keeping a wide berth, as if they knew about the anomaly as well, and had no interest in engaging.

Red reaches out a hand to it, standing before it, hovering over its shape before laying it against the surprisingly soft, yet firm, texture beneath. There was a fur like moss, so fine and small across its body, that he had realised until his hand caressed across it, skin tickled. There were no cracks to its bark, and really, it was hard to think of it as a tree.

But it wasn’t really, was it?

Everyone but Snorlax move in to surround the extraordinary sight. Red curves his steps to slowly, very slowly, circle the structure.

“Did we find it? Xerneas’s tree…?”

Days, weeks, all spent walking, hiking, climbing—for this moment. The stated goal of their journey based upon the vaguest of rumours, but a goal nonetheless. Red wonders if it’s a trick; there’s tree pokémon or so he’s heard, part ghost and grass, and ghosts were always mischievous, no matter their form. It’s so easy to question what it is they’ve found, even as he rounds himself to the other side, and just sees

 

a ruined building, encased by a golden ring on the other side of its wooden belly.

“...Uh?”

Say what again?

Red blinks, but the sight doesn’t disappear. A greying sky exposed only by what looks like a broken-in wall in the foreground, brick on brick dulled by the elements, but still standing otherwise. In the lower framing of the ring peeked where the rest had crumbled to, scattering along an unseen floor.

In the tree. In a _ring_.

That ring. That— well, he’s not going to _touch_ it, but he does gawk at it with as much disbelief. Blue had said— had Blue said anything about this? Kris? He remembered stories involving life and death with this pokémon and another. But, a mirror?

He leans his head in, unsure of that description. A mirror. No, there was no reflection to it. He couldn’t see his own face, only what was inside. And what was inside was...a breeze, a wind touching his face. From that other side; which he startles himself to even think, and tries to reason otherwise, turning his head frantically for another source, a more realistic one.

Except the air catches again against the side of his cheek, without tickling the back of his ear, his neck, none of his lower body. Red slowly turns his head back to face towards the… hole. The window.

Pikachu plops on his shoulder, whistling like the wind, and Red hums.

“What do you think of it, Pikachu?” he asks, beginning to lean away from the view. “Isn’t it...”

A horn nearly pokes him in the face, stumbling his feet, and nearly the creature on his shoulder.  It turns its head, a gold ring dangling, green eyes peering curiously on a purple face.

The creature then whistles, the same sound Red heard before, and its mouth curves with a mischievous idea—and it reaches with detached hand for the golden ring set against the tree, pulling it and the world on the other side closer, and wider, and—

 

Red falls, smacking onto hard, cold concrete.


	12. Chapter 12

Three pairs of eyes peer longingly at Sina from below and the treat she holds in her hand. The trio may have never seen the circular pink poképuff before, with its frosted centre and sugary casing, but it doesn’t stop the charmander from jumping up eagerly, a fiery tail swishing and making the squirtle in the pen yelp when it swings too close.

Luckily for the three, Sina takes out two more of the same treat, and with a “Here you go!” she throws them for the pokémon to catch; all three failing, but scrambling thereafter.

Which made watching them all the more entertaining, Sina laughing as she straightens up.

“Young pokémon really are the best, aren’t they? From afar.”

“You wouldn’t want one, Sina?” Dexio asks from the side. He’s chewing on the remaining half of his sandwich, standing by the wall with an amused expression.

“Are you joking? I don’t have the time. Unless,” she amends, “it was _really_ cute…”

“So, maybe a bulbasaur?”

“No! Not me.” The bulbasaur below doesn’t appear to be offended, too busy getting specks of hardened pink sugar over its green lips. “But you know,” she thoughtfully considers, placing a forefinger under her chin as she inspects her fellow assistant, _“you_ look like a squirtle guy.”

“Me?”

Dexio points at himself, his lunch bulging the inside of his mouth. Down below the squirtle blinks inquisitively to the sound of its name, its treat already fully engorged inside its cheek in a similar fashion.

“Is this what you two do all day?” interrupts the playful chatter, and Sina looks over to where the voice comes from, its owner standing with a confident slant that’s matched by the crooked lean of their smirk.

Ah, the _Green Oak_ himself has returned to grace them with his presence.

He walks by the assistant desks to stand with them near the playpen set out, observing the three pokémon he’d bought over with him today. But they hold no recognition for him—they were a gift from his grandfather, after all—and don’t stop in their fun and games, their treats fully devoured.

“Ever since I left for my journey, all the new kids came bugging my gramps for these,” Green shares, that crooked edge of his mouth curling a little more fondly. “ _And_ pikachu. It was a pain in the ass. Anyway,” he moves on, regarding both her and Dexio, “has your professor got an idea who he’s interested in picking for his project yet?”

“Patience wins the biggest prize!” Sina wisely replies, a forefinger raised. “There’s no rush. He’ll know when he knows.”

Green shrugs indifferently. But with him standing there, Sina takes the moment to contemplate what she sees.

“Let me guess, Green, you were… Charmander?”

“ _He’s_ the squirtle,” Dexio pipes up. “Blastoise were a popular choice in Kanto when I visited.”

“Really?”

“Alright, kids,” Green drawls, “I’ll leave you to it. Tell Sycamore it was fun.”

Arms unfolding as he turns, Green doesn’t wait for their good-byes, heading straight for the elevator. Sina waves a hand towards the pokémon and Dexio, saying, “I’ll leave you to watch them,” and faintly catching his ‘oh, _sure’_ as she hurries to catch up the leaving Kanto man.

Slipping inside the lift with haste, she pushes the ground floor button for him, leaning against the opposite wall and catching his raised eyebrow.

“Chasing after me, huh?”

She keeps her smile tamed. “In your dreams, tree oak. But I said good-bye to the last colour, so I might as well see you off too. I’m a fair lady.”

“Hey, I’m not going too far yet.” He slings his hands into his pockets, keeping distance, but pressing in with his flirtatious remarks. “Still plenty of drinks we can get. On me.”

She won’t say it aloud—he doesn’t need the encouragement!—but she can’t deny he isn’t pleasing, both in voice and looks. She doesn’t retreat from his gaze, holding it, some part of her maybe—considering.

But before she can pull away from the moment first, he’s the one to laugh, turning towards the steel doors.

“Hey, your loss. Guess that means more for me.”

The lift opens as if on cue. Sina takes in the sight of him, toys for a second the idea giving him kiss, at least on the cheek; but he’s tall enough to excuse her own thoughts, and she folds her arms behind her back, allowing him all the room to make his leave.

“Enjoy the rest of your time,” she says, “now that you’re a free man from exams, Green.”

The smile he gives is soft, less bolder than his usual flirtatious charm. And then it’s gone, Green leaving her with a raised hand and a good-humoured good-bye:

“Smell ya later, Sina!”

 

* * *

 

But Lumiose was a big place; more than likely, Green wouldn’t be seeing her again.

His last beer in hand, his legs lead him back to the couch from the fridge, the small amount of buzz in his system making his recline over the soft leather a smooth and comfortable drop. The clouds in his head were about the only good part of drinking alone at night, like a pathetic loser with nothing to do but to watch a shitty show about shitty food (and _ugh,_ he’s not that drunk to find it sickening, but this dumb show—why did he always stop on it?). Still, Green was fully aware of the pathetic loser part of his current situation.

Lucky for his bank account, he’d gotten sick of wasting his money at overpriced bars, and he was never that ecstatic over having random nobodies bugging him to share their life stories or looking for a chance to get into his pants. Which left him being a lonely—or no, _drunk_ —loser in his apartment.

But hell, that was better than what the last couple of months turned out to be, leading him here.

His eyes bore into the TV screen, colours blurring into one another, liquefying with the lines of the television’s borders and blending out into reality. Maybe he should’ve given Sina a chance to answer; or changed the offer to dinner, or just about anything else other than what his night turned into.

But the idea wasn’t that exciting. Sina was alright, but there was a difference between joking with someone for a few minutes and dealing with forced pleasantries for who knows how long. A battle would’ve been different—actually, a battle would’ve been _great—_ but professors’ assistants were more misses than hits, most of the time. Depending on the kind of assistant. What kind was she, anyway? Well, too late to start thinking about that now.

Green brings the can of his drink into view for another sip, but the hard grey of its bulging shape fucks with his vision, stinging his eyes, forcing him to blink away abstraction.

“Shit,” he mutters, rubbing knuckles into the sockets. The apartment stitches itself slowly back together, and when the TV screen becomes more than an oversaturated light source, Green notices the show has long since changed to something else, the time closer to midnight.

Well, that was a sign as any that he might as well get to bed and _pray_ he doesn’t wake up half-dead. Green rises to his feet, fumbling with the remote to flip the room into a heavy silence, and—feeling his can empty with a tilt—leaves behind the depressing mess on the coffee table for his bedroom.

His bedroom _. His_ bedroom. The one where his body refuses to sleep anywhere but one specific side of the bed now, and where, sometimes, he still thinks in the early morning ‘ _Red must be in the kitchen’_ when his arm finds nothing but an empty space to reach for, and reality lurches at his stomach.

  


 

That next morning isn’t any different.

 

* * *

 

God, look at the state of that face in the mirror.

Unfortunately, that face can’t go straight back to bed, a few battles and practices planned with Kris around lunchtime and the arms of the clock half an hour away from that. She gives him a look upon his late entrance into the institute, “Did you oversleep?”, and he waves her off irritably.

“Don’t start, I’m here.”

Her mouth is pursed, but she recommends that their fighting-types start off on a quick mock round, to lead them into their plans for today. It gives them time to prepare for a proper battle—gives him more time to wake-up, Green knows, and Machamp and her hitmontop are more than ready than to lead themselves into a friendly bout. Machamp has speed, but her hitmontop has more, and its size and flexibility always figures out a way of getting out of Machamp’s grip in easy time.

She could easily be one of the top battling trainers, Kris—but there wasn’t any point in telling her that.

“Alright.” Green rolls his neck, feeling his body more awake and alert, a pokéball passed between two hands. Machamp and the hitmontop pause amidst a leg pressed to Machamp’s face, another and an arm in the big guy’s arms. “Playtime’s over, boys. Time for the real stuff.”

 

* * *

 

 

But when Tyranitar turns out more interested in showing off by roaring and stamping his feet, Alakazam cutting off mega evolution five minutes in with a stabbing pain shooting straight to Green’s head, nobody else apparently got the memo.

Green shoves the water pooling in his hands into his face, splashing as far as his ears, collar, and down his shirt. He looks up at the restroom mirror, and all he can think about the face staring back at him—the same face that always has, eyes a little darker, his mouth more taut, tired and fed up—is—

 _God_.

Kris is less than impressed waiting outside, arms folded as tight as the scrutinising she greets him with. Green just shows her the back of his shoulder, adjusting the strap of his bag as he starts walking.

“Don’t start. It was an off day.”

“ _And_ for your pokémon?”

“Why not. It happens.”

“I think it has less to do with your pokémon and more with _you._ ”

He scoffs at the claim, but he’s the only one who does when they get to the nearest park and he lets out the troublemakers of his team—Tyranitar and Alakazam, the latter who meets him with a screwed up face.

 _“Headaches?”_ Green balked, Alakazam a spitting image of Kris with her folded arms, if not for the crossed legs and floating mid-air that comes with it. “You’ve had it easy up ‘till now. How can you be getting headaches?”

Alakazam turns her head to face him, eyes opening to stare unwavering into his.

 _“I’m_ the headache?” Green finally says, and he swings the finger pointing at himself to his no-good, big-headed, _fussy_ psychic. “You know what your problem is? Too many massages softened your brain. _Yeah_ , that’s what I thought,” he calls as she begins floating off.

Tyranitar slams a foot down, rumbling the ground beneath them as his cry sends nearby vivillon and flabébe fluttering away to safer flowerbeds. It throws out the thoughts of _over-fragile, over-pampered know-it-alls_ from Green’s head, but Kris isn’t as lopsided as she approaches the temper tantrum, her meganium in tow. Tyranitar growls, lower this time, but not without meaning, not even the scent that Green begins to notice knocking off that edge.

“What’s wrong? You know who I am,” Kris speaks up to him, calm, her head tilted back to meet Tyranitar’s narrowed gaze.

Their exchange holds, until Tyranitar sharply sidesteps her, his tail knocking—but not with much force—into the pair on his way to stand by Green.

He huffs again, puffing out his body, arms and all; a proud mess.

Green sighs, slinging his hands into his pockets as he offers Kris a defeated shrug.

“He’s feeling protective,” Kris shares a little later, once Tyranitar is distracted by Machamp’s playful nature, engaging him in a mock fight between himself and Kris’s meganium. The two work well together; it’s interesting to watch from the bench they’ve chosen, Green finds, until Kris interrupts all that.

“Protective?” Green snorts. “The big kid’s far from protective of anything but his own ego.”

“Well, that’s how it seems to me. He was being loud in our battle, and the way he got jealous of you and Alakazam…”

“Jealous?”

“What else would you call it?”

 _Dumb baby_ is Green’s first thought, but keeps that to himself.

“Between Tyranitar’s moods and Alakazam’s headaches,” Kris goes on, “if those have been going on for a while, it may have something to do with a change in their lives. Which,” and she gives a deliberate pause, “can do with you.”

Green keeps down the groan ready to bubble up his throat, the weight of that _you_ not missed. Like he couldn’t see _him_ getting blamed. Again.

He thinks to say nothing back at all, but he catches Kris watching him, and gives in.

“Nothing’s changed for us,” he answers gruffly.

“Mmm,” she hums, far from believing. “He may be trying to assert himself then, or,” she waves a hand, “soothe his ego. You’d know better, but tyranitars are described as being prideful, and yours fits the stories I know.”

Shutting his eyes, Green lets his head hang back, a decision he somewhat regrets with nothing to support his neck. But he keeps it there, hoping for the blood to rush to his brain quick, or even for his head to come off.

What a stupid thought. Maybe Kris is right, or Alakazam, or whoever wants to be; maybe _he’s_ throwing off the others with the late nights.

But if they’re right, then so is he.

“Things have been—all over the place,” he goes for, which isn’t _not_ the truth. He has plenty of excuses on hand, if she needs them. “Y’know, I got word about a tournament the league guys want the gym leaders and champions to go to. Big thing. I’ve got to figure what I’m going to be doing until then.”

“Really?” Kris asks. “Where at?”

“Unova.”

“Unova? Isn’t that where Red came here from?”

“Yeah.” There it comes, the rushing sensation to his face, his world lopsided, about as uncomfortable as, well, these things usually are. Green brings his head forward, skin tingling quickly with relief and his neck aching, and he rubs at his eyes.

“Have you heard from him?” Kris asks. “He’s not very good with his phone.”

Green presses his knuckles into his eyes, then releases it; watching the blur of the pressure rescind, the slight dull pain of his action lingering.

“He goes where he pleases. It’s how he’s always been. It’s got nothing to do with me.”

He speaks tenser than he means to, and he feels a justified gaze on him that he doesn’t turn to meet, observing the sparring pokémon instead. Something makes Tyranitar look over to him, which earns the pokèmon a jab to the side of the head via Machamp. Roaring loudly (whinily), he thrashes around like a petulant kid.

Green invites Kris to pizza as thanks later on. She raises an eye to his eating his crust first at the restaurant, which is _rich_ , being judged by a girl she doesn’t eat hers at _all._

Just like another kid he....

Whatever.

 

* * *

 

Red frowns. “I save the crust for Snorlax.”

“Snorlax,” Green repeats. “The big lummox who already eats more than half of my pokémon in one sitting?”

“That’s because you let him have it.” Red reaches for another slice of pizza from the coffee table and, when settling back into the couch, scoots in as close to the side of him, trapping Green between the arm of the sofa and his body. “You’re so nice, Green.”

“Kid,” Green chides, clearing his hands of the pizza grease. He’d had enough, but Red wasn’t one to leave leftovers. _Except_ for when it came to his pokèmon.

“A kid you’re wearing your glasses for.” Green looks at Red then, whose eyes are on him than the slice sitting in his hands, a smear of sauce on the side of his mouth. He’s ridiculous looking, with his mess of hair, that tomato puree; except he’s got that _look_ going on that distracts Green from everything else.

“What’s my eyesight got to do with you?” He asks, simply. Red scoots again, bringing them shoulder to shoulder, the slice of pizza out of Green’s view.

“Because you know I like them,” Red answers slyly, and brings his lips to Green’s, the taste of tomato and grease as sweet on his mouth as on his tongue. Green can’t help but worry about disgusting bits of food he might find when their tongues come together, but thankfully there isn’t any, or none he finds. All there is, is that sweetness, them; a late sunday evening that needs nothing else.

His reading has been lacking ever since Red came along, the amount of training he’s got to put in, how often he gets to go travelling; which those two things had nothing to do with the other guy, but uni. But reading? He couldn’t be too upset about that.

(How did ever spend his downtimes not bored out of his mind before Red showed up?

Perfectly capable, he reminds himself.)

Green rests a hand on Red’s leg, their mouths parting, but faces keeping close. “You’ve got some funny tastes,” he grins; mind on the empty space in his mouth once full, knowing the best way to distract Red from food. Parted legs, eyes on a colouring face above.

Red runs his tongue along his bottom lip, replying in the same lowered voice as Green, "You think mushrooms are gross."

Green pauses, and then, "—What?"

But Red just stares straight at him, far too intently. "You heard me."

And there with one bad food opinion goes any sexual thought ever for the night. Green shoves at Red’s shoving, pushing him away.

“You are _so_ bad at this,” he says, groans, while Red wraps a hand needily around his neck, “You’re not going anywhere”, and refuses Green to leave him dry as he starts nipping at his neck.

The pizza slice turns up the next morning, cold and stale, face down on the carpet.

 

* * *

 

He stares at himself in the mirror, brow taut, mouth as well, seeing everything he expects to see of the face he’s spent his whole life with.

God.

 _Alright, you,_ he tells himself, _no more of this moping shit. Time to do something with yourself. Stop being a joke._

So he does, with a backpack filled and taking off on Pidgeot, reaching the highest skies and allowing his partner control. Green leaves behind that mirror, that stale apartment and expiring school life, and allows freedom to take him wherever it chooses to lead them.

Or some junk like that.

Farm lands spread far with their groomed lines sectioned by untrimmed grass and bush life, untamed land speckled by the few remaining flowers continuing to thrive despite the autumn cold. There’s no mistaking the below scenery for anywhere back home, but the skies are different, the air numbing his face and the sense of being unshackled that comes from being outdoors, away, from technology and society; everything you need to do, think you need to do, all plans and the future and the present—none of that exist in these moments. Only you, the world, the inability to keep the end of your nose warm for the life of you.

_‘Don’t you ever want to just go out there and see if you find anything?’_

Nothing but the sound of gushing wind to drown out even your own mind.

The flat lands bump and curve, and dirt-roads and a field of grey lumps with life and people joined with them comes into view below, people collected together farther on in unmistakable battle. Pidgeot knows to begin to descend, farther along in view the spectacle of a sky battle so popular in Kalos, and not just one. _Rhyhorns_ are what those grey things are, so Green notices on the way down, but they go to more empty land on top of a hill, a long drop to reach the level that leads to the trainers, and also where a business-minded individual has set out a stall of snacks and jars of some other product.

“Hm,” Green hums nonchalantly, giving his neck a stretch this way and that before holding out an arm. “Guess this’ll do. You in the mood to make some jokes cry?”

Pidgeot squawks in a way that sounds more like a laugh and then picks himself into the air, taking the offered arm to carry Green on his way down.

The area is one Green soon recognises he’s been to long before, around when he first came to Kalos and had gone checking out the nearby cities. It sits between Santalune and the Victory Road to the league, and that year’s Championship competition had just come to the end. But that didn't mean anything for the trainers who'd fail the climb up the road—and never had, in his experience—or for those who needed _that_ little more training before they’d be confident in taking on the supposed best of the best.

It happened all over the world, gatherings like these; it was the reason the trainer school in Viridian had been extended into a place where veterans could come and train, than just somewhere where all the newbies could go instead of bugging him. (They did, anyway.)

Pidgeot’s more agreeable than Tyranitar’s been for more than a month in battle, Rhyperior’s no-nonsense approach to life appreciated in their battles against excadrills, chestnaughts, pyroars and dragalge. The blood gets pumping around Green’s body, keeping him warm, nose as well, and he finds near that stall he'd spotted before a small trailer selling warm tea to the resting trainers, offering warmer meals than the health conscious table could provide.

It’s already dark by the time Green bothers to head into Santalune to book a bed for the night and grab dinner, a small eatery next door to the hotel still open. He goes there again the next morning, then out to the fields where trainers have already gathered once more, and it’s not until late lunch he decides to actually explore the city beyond the essentials, figuring he might as well get something for his sister and gramps. Something different from the same old, maybe, even if coffee and tea really did never go to waste with those two.

But it’s hard, to ignore the couples’ with an arm around the other, hands fixed together, the winery with their selections put on display in picnic baskets, and why he should want to ignore those things, but doesn’t. It’s harder to ignore then, the empty space beside him that’s been his company the entire time.

And yet somehow Green doesn’t realise the obvious until he’s out the door of a small honey business, popping open the lid of the treat for his waiting pidgeot to be fed some. It takes eyeing the labelling, letting the thought leave him mind, the sweet substance pooling on the inner side of the lid for Pidgeot to scrape at.

Then— _click._ Red. Red got this once, when he left for trips more often, when Green was still getting used to the sight of him, the bizarre reality of having him around.

Pidgeot ruffles the wings at his sides, cooing; not impatiently, but harshly.

“Yeah,” Green responds, a mutter.

He sits with the avian along a wall not far from the city’s centre, minding his own business, save for two boys hollering too loudly to be ignored. One stands with a face smug and confident, while the other, with a pansage hanging off his shoulder, is tight-fisted and scowling, with something or the other about _out of your league, too slow_ being taunted _._

Green watches the spectacle with some amusement, scoffing as he returns to Pidgeot, brushing off crumbs from his lap.

“That was the good ol’ days, huh?”

Pidgeot coos proudly, poised despite the remnants of honey along the edges of his beak.

Being dumb and young. So that’s how the saying goes, but he did pretty well, if he said so himself. A Championship (for a while), a gym, a renowned reputation. One of the top trainers in the world, and now soon, for sure, a graduate in one of the best universities in Kalos.

For certain. The wait for his exam results—aggravated him, impatient as he could be. He wouldn’t say he was worried, because he wasn’t, but it was annoying anyway, to say the least.

Green throws his trash in a nearby bin, Pidgeot trailing not far behind, the city noisier than he thought it a second ago. But then the reason comes launching itself in his way, fierce eyes locking onto his:

“Let’s battle!”

The pansage on the boy’s shoulder scrambles to not fall off, yapping to echo its trainer’s demand.

“Wha—” Green stares at the kid incredulously, taking in his—everything. Checkered  shirt, shorts (in this weather?), freckled nose and a wimpy-looking grass-type. “Seriously?”

“Yeah!” he replies earnestly.

“Kid, I’m out of your league.”

“But I need to learn how to become a better trainer…” The boy’s hands ball up before him, just as he’d had them with the other kid before. But those fists pump upward this time, dispelling any momentary self-pity. “We can take it! Everyone says I should get a bug type too, but _we_ want to win! Me and Pan!”

The boy has fire in his eyes, even when the pokèmon—the Pan in question—shoves one of its paws into the cheek of the boy for balance. It mimics its trainer as it squeaks louder this time, in obvious solidarity.

Green waits for the seconds to past. One, two, three; and the kid in the checkered shirt and his pokèmon are still there, frozen in their stance but time surely moving, and this actually really, for real, _happening_.

He looks to Pidgeot in question, but the bird is as incredulous as him. So Green looks back, at this embarrassing state of _childhood—_

“Alright,” Green sighs, shoulders slumping, “you know what? You’ve got one try to impress me.”

 _Fine_ , he can do this. Just this once. Why not? Humour him, world.

The boy takes them to a park larger than any of the ones in Lumiose, and Green allows him the opportunity to show off than just to beat him into the grass and be on his way.

It’s not as much a waste of time as first impressions would lead one to believe anyway, which isn’t saying a _lot_ , but the kid’s decent. Just decent. He doesn’t crumble when Green finally does more than leave Pidgeot to dodge the attacks thrown at him and goes in for the attack instead. The pansage quivers and throws himself out of the way of the incoming avian, takes the beating of a (softened) gust standing up, and even—the point that actually manages to impress Green—get a vine whip wrapped around Pidgeot’s claw, after a quick attack.

Unfortunately for the little guy it didn’t matter, the tug of it doing nothing but alerting Pidgeot to what’s occurred. He looks, and yanks back as he flies forward, sending the rattled grass-type kicked to the ground with all the fight drained from his body. Exhaustion more likely, than a real battering; not surprising with the skill difference, and the pokèmon’s earlier timid behaviour.

The boy scoops his pansage into his arms, who whines guiltily at his trainer. “No, it’s fine, you did fine,” the kid assures, meeting Green with a tight face as he admits against his pride, “Okay, you win. I give up.”

“Hey, don’t look so depressed,” Green replies, arms folded. “Your guy there like honey?”

 

* * *

 

 

More frightened than hurt, it’s uncertainty that slows the first pawful inside the jar, but then the sweet taste has the pokèmon looking more alive than Green’s gotten to see it, chomping on its own hand to get at the treat, sat on top of its trainer’s legs.

“Who was that other kid you were talking to?” Green asks, sat beside him.

“Kid?” The kid pushes down his brow, thinking. “Before you? Oh, that was Glenn… He’s got a pansear, so the gym wasn’t a problem for him!”

Huh, the gym around here. Maybe bug type, by the sounds of it. “So you two are thinking about taking on the big league?”

“I dunno, maybe…” The kid shrugs indifferently, head then piping up with his voice. “All I know is I wanna kick Glenn’s ass!”

“Woah, language, kiddo,” Green reminds.

The boy sniffs. “What’re you, a grandpa?”

“Say that again, brat.”

“It’s seriously boring though,” the kid continues, knocking a heel into the dirt. “I thought we’d get to train together, but he says I slow him down, so now I never see him. Where’s the fun in that?”

His lower lip pouts, and that face he makes—there’s something intimately familiar about it to Green. Geez, he hope he never looked like that back when he was his age.

The complaint isn’t foreign either to him; more of an excuse (still though, the truth) once upon a time, an ambition to be the greatest.

A goal to show the world his brilliance. To really put a neighbour in his place.

 _Kids_.

Green snorts heartily. “Hey, when you see him again, you get to show him how much you’ve gotten better. You can’t do that if you’re hanging around each other all the time.”

“What if I don’t care about that?” The boy counters, but gives up in the next breath that deflates his shoulder, making his bottom lip bigger, sulkier. He moodily watches his pansage, who peers up at its trainer with worried eyes. “Whatever, he never listens to me anyway.”

Can a kid get any more sulky? Green keeps the urge to laugh in the back of his throat, but lets a full grin press into his cheeks, standing onto his feet.

“C’mon kid, you’re too depressing for me. I’m going to show you how to win.” He walks out from the bench, turning to face his little _protégé,_ rolling up sleeves just for show. “If you lose after this, it’s all on you. Think you can handle that?”

Eyes widen at him, dark eyes, under a mess of wild hair that quivers when the boy jumps onto his feet. He luckily has an arm around his unsuspecting pansage, but the pokèmon fails to catch the near-empty jar of honey that drops onto the soft grass with its lid. The boy doesn’t notice, grinning eagerly.

“We’re ready!”

 

* * *

 

 

“Think you’re so tough?... One…. two!”

Red heaves, sucking up air between a mouthful of clenched teeth, and _pulls,_ hands and arms wrapped tight around the tiny arm that refuses to move by the thread of hair, for no one, for nothing, no matter what.

Because that arm belongs to Tyranitar, and Red’s level of strength is in line with, what, a magikarp’s?

Green can just hear the barking of Arcanine and the squeaks of Red’s Pikachu, there along with Machamp, the latter pokèmon giving support to both sides, while the other two seem to be more on _Team Red_ than _Team Tyranitar._

“Can’t believe he’s keeping this up,” he mumbles, leaned back on the picnic blanket, rolling a piece between a forefinger and thumb idly. Pidgeot chirps derisively, while Alakazam, with eyes closed in meditative peace (pfft), shares silently her point of view telekinetically, the sensation like a hand on his head, beneath the hair and on the scalp itself.

_(It’s working.)_

“Yeah, yeah,” he says, “I know.”

Compare a time and a half ago when Tyranitar would soon walk off from Red’s attempts to best him, push Red aside, or ignore the trainer completely, to now approaching and daring Red to try, succumbing to Red’s attempts to show off by throwing a rock, and he in turn throwing a boulder.

Tyranitars, the destroyer of mountains. _His_ tyranitar, a grown-up baby.

Green doesn’t watch the show of power (or lack of), but his eyes are settled on the pair as well, or on Red, mainly. Taking in that energy, exuberance; all put into a screwed up fast, trying desperately to do what he knows he’ll fail. But that’s the real goal: getting along with all of Green’s pokèmon is.

And acting like a huge embarrassment in the way, a big _kid._ This is what he wants to—date, be with. God. Whose crazy idea was this for his life?

_(You’re happy.)_

Green jumps, hand about to swing over his heart but freezing mid-air. He settles it back down, glaring at Alakazam, exhaling sharply. God _damnit_ , you.

“ _Sure_ I’m happy,” he grits between teeth. “Better you all get along with him than don’t.”

 _(More than that), she_ shares—more than _just_ that—, and Green feels, sees, in his mind the way he’d just been looking at Red, the comfort and fondness.

The heat goes to his face as Green sits himself up, repeating _get out get out get out_ as obnoxiously as he can inside his head. Pidgeot scrambles out of the way, squawking defiantly.

“Don’t _do_ that, creep,” he frowns, folding his arms around himself. He pictures brick walls and doors, stares long and hard at the grass of the hill, and not thinking of the image of Red lingering in his head, the sensation that had been there, temporarily. Comfort, fondness. Comfort. Comfort?

He leans against his knees, gazing back to the sight of Red switching tactics of going for pulling on Tyranitar, to now trying to push his belly with all his might. Pikachu’s joined with him, down by his leg.

“It—feels alright, you know?” He says it aloud, awkwardly. Pidgeot was the last of his team mates to care about his love life, but talking in his head for Alakazam was _not_ his thing.

But at the same time, he’s not sure how to put the rest into words. It’s...alright—this is, them, what they have, are. It feels normal, even if that doesn’t make sense, because it isn’t. Because Red being around instead of a hundred miles apart isn’t what’s normal, and the fact he’s just dumped himself in Green’s like, and just, just—

Slotted together with him, like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, clicking together seamlessly. Green doesn’t know if that’s his thought or Alakazam’s; he questions it, then disregards it. Disregards the jigsaw, brushing aside the pieces.

“It pisses me off more,” he says louder, straightening his shoulders and back. “I’ve gotta have better taste than this, don’t I?”

Pidgeot’s squawk sounds like haughty laughter, and Alakazam stays silent. Before Green can direct anything to either of them, there’s a yelp as Red finally falls background, Tyranitar roaring far too loud for such a dumb thing.

 _“Morons,”_ Green mutters under his breath, at the lot of them, raising to his feet to call Red a dumbass to his face.

And calling himself it, inside his head, along the way.

 

* * *

 

“You showed such confidence,” the gym leader says with a smile bloomed across her face, placing the bug badge into the boy’s open palm. His pansage is cradled to his chest, worn out, but smiling too. “I’m happy to be a snapshot in the beginning of your trainer journey!”

Tears glisten in his eyes, brightening them along with the joy on his face, a trickle of snot escaping his nose that’s smudged by the time he wades through the clapping trainers, makes his way towards where Green stands. His arms are folded, standing by the entrance wall.

“Hey, look brighter than that,” Green chides him, but not really, the edges of his own mouth tilted upward. “You want to make a face like that when you beat Glenn?”

“It… It was so amazing,” he blubbers, the badge lost tight inside his tiny fist, Pan’s paws clinging to his checkered shirt. “We gave it our all!”

Green scoffs, laughs, some mix of the two, and goes to ruffle the mess of brown hair roughly, just for fun. “You gotta, each time. There’s no getting scared of losing halfway. But now what? Is that the last badge you’re going to get?”

“No! I want to try again! There’s a big gym in Lumiose… I’m going to get together all my pocket money and go after them!”

“Aha. Atta boy,” Green says. “I hope I hear about a… What’s your name, anyway? Ron?”

Reed? Richard? Re—?

The boy looks at him queerly. _“Ron?”_ He repeats, baffled. “It’s Andrew.”

Oh. “Er, sure. Andy. If I don’t hear about you taking over Kalos in the future, I’ll think that Glenn came and kicked your ass.” He moves away from the wall, eyeing the glass double doors and freedom from the gym, but not without taking in the acoustics of a gym in, just for a moment.

“But okay, I can’t keep playing around with kids. Check out the TVs in a few months for a world tournament if you ever miss me,” he says, swinging him a two-fingered salute before heading for the way out.

“Huh? My dad doesn’t have cable!” The boy calls behind from him.

“Whatever, ask a friend!”

“Byeeee, grandpa!”

“Brat!”

 

* * *

 

The beaches around the city of Cyllage are a near carbon copy of Ambrette’s. They’re a show of what could be with a little more life and interest to the tiny town with its bigger spread. Nevertheless, the familiarity is far from disappointing to Green, with the sights of the waves swaying back and forth upon smoothed rock and crusted sand, the sun hanging heavily in a sky splattered in oranges, purples and gold. It was worth some of the long walk taken to get there.

 _Only_ some, Green’s feet emphasise as he wander the street bordering the city and the beach. He passes mingling groups, tourist trap stores and overpriced bakeries, a window displaying roller skates of every shade and make.

What he’s looking for is further on, hard to miss, whether you’re looking or it or not; a building the length of two houses, gaudily-painted pokèmon surrounded by coins and gold bars. People fill the darkened interior of the arcade from the opened entrance way, where sitting outside is a claw game, unoccupied, twinkling lights above the glass pane showing its mountain of toys inside.

Green exhales through his nose, eyes narrowing, and looks back out to the sea and sand.

He finds steps leading down from the road onto the softer texture, kicking off his shoes to hang from his fingers. His soles pulse with ache in each step, but fainter than they just had.

The sun keeps him from looking too far out from the sea and keeping to the sandy spread. Parents huddle on colourful beach-towels, kids making their sandcastles stand proud and too wet, while others lost themselves in the peace of the evening.

And there Green spots him, sitting on the grainy sand, looking out to the waves veined with white foam, a tiny toy dwebble his sea-viewing company.

“You could’ve gotten one for cheaper if you’d bought it,” Green remarks, nearly sitting on the other side of the toy before kicking it aside, and taking its spot.

“Yeah, well— whatever,” Red finally goes for, more interested in the _peace of the evening_ part of being on the beach than banter. Green shrugs to himself, reaching for his feet to rub and then regret, brushing off the grains sticking to his hand, and sitting back.

This is fine too, he guesses. Not as romantic as _his_ well thought-out preparations back over in Geosenge Town, but Green knew Red wasn’t about to think to offer to take them to a nice place to eat, because you like eating well, Green, or lean in, kiss him; look at him the way Red knows how to and say, _I’m happy, you’ve really changed my life; thanks for walking all the way from Geosenge to here for me. I don’t deserve it._

Green digs his heels in, just a little further. Did he want to hear any of that? —That last part, yes, definitely. That much he was owed, and all Red had given him before becoming so _enamored_ by a dumb claw game was rolling eyes. Really, the stuff Green puts up with—

“What do you think is out there?”

“Hwuh?” Green zones back into the real world; where Red continues to look out at the sea than anywhere else. ”Uh, I dunno…. Ocean, I guess. There’s a place called Galar in some direction. Unova...”

“Don’t you ever want to just go out there and see if you find anything?” Red asks.

“In the middle of the ocean?” Green scoffs, knocking the other man’s arm with his elbow. “Get real, Red.”

 _Typical_ , because wouldn’t Red think something as dumb as that? There was nothing out there to see from where they sat, the sun reminding Green to squint as it hovered annoyingly in the edge of his view. There might be a few swimmers still enjoying the less busy evening waters, but no one in their right mind would consider going out, farther and farther, until land was a memory, nothing but the blue sea and melting sky turning dark in their vicinity.

No one in their right mind. No one—but as Green looks back to Red, transfixed so calmly, naturally; he notices this time how far he already is.

Because Red would, wouldn’t he? Because that’s where Red has always been in Green’s mind, out there in the world, everywhere, out of reach of him and everyone.

Green grabs at Red’s arm suddenly, tugging it, startling Red with widening eyes that face him; and Green speaks, louder over the world that makes him hold on tight—”Hey, you,” with a smile, a laughter forced into his words, “No sailing away. You hear?”

It’ll come—won’t it? That wanderlust in Red that’s taken him farther than any other person Green’s known, in flesh or history. He wants to be selfish. Can’t he be? He wants Red to stay a little longer, just a while more. They can talk about all that later, another time, another day.  What they’ll do. Or maybe he can convince Red that society ain’t so bad, that hey; haven’t we had a good time, you and me?

Haven’t we? This _you and me_ thing. This _us._ It’s not so bad letting a person in once in a while after all, is it?

Red looks to him, mouth pulling into a smile. Green waits for a joke, a _‘sure’,_ anything to reassure him _—_ but it never comes.

 

* * *

 

Green closes together the folds of the cardboard box, tucking them over one another and shoving the whole thing about an inch out of the way (look, he’s tired). Another hundred pound crate books to be put in storage later; now, just another twelve hundred thousand to go.

“You know,” he starts, stretching in his back while Alakazam flips the pages of three field-focused books simultaneously in mid-air, “you’re meant to be helping me. Not reading.”

She isn’t deterred from her light reading, pages continuing to _flip, flip, flip,_ almost as if to specifically annoy him. It works, but Green just sighs his frustrations, getting up off the floor. He leans in his back again, hands on his sides, and after relaxing, he walks over to the broom cupboard, slowly opening the door. Didn’t shove a box of junk in there, did he?

No, not a box—but a wad of gloss paper tumbles out onto the floor, unfurling with their newfound freedom. The top one reveals a large image of a slurpuff surrounded by swirlix camouflaged by hanging cotton candy and cakes, with _‘Mmm...delicious!’_ in curly font at the bottom.

Green stares down at it; a change from when it had been tacked above the TV screen, next to an obligatory ‘ _hang in there!’_ skitty poster (surprising those things can hang onto _anything_ ), another of a basket filled with baby eevees. Red’s grin had been obnoxiously large and proud when he’d walked in from uni, and Green had scowled, conflicted by the choice, how cute the young eevees looked, how he would never _ever_ let Red know he thought that—

He grabs the lot of them, rolls them and the slurpuff out of view, before stuffing the lot down the side of couch, trapped from unravelling. Turning back to the door, he spots Alakazam peering his way before quickly pretending to be reading her books.

He ignores her, heading into the bedroom. There’s plenty of clothes in there to deal with next than to bother with trash.

Alakazam joins him once he’s gotten off about half of the hangars. She takes the rest from his wardrobe with the lift of a finger, and tests her abilities in removing a hangar from a shirt, one side slipping out first, the other beginning to. “Don’t do them all,” he tells her. “I need to keep some. We ain’t leaving yet.”

She stops what she’s doing, but Green nods in signal for her to continue, and she spreads the clothing selection for him to pick and choose what to keep, what to get folded. They make quicker work in getting _half_ of it packed, with each hesitation on some choices decided by Alakazam with a shirt flipped to face her, then either deposited onto the _pack_ bundle or joining the row hanging in air by an invisible rack.

Green leaves her to put them away, moving onto the drawers of his desk where the more miscellaneous pieces were likely to be. In one are pens, notepads, half a packet of gum and coins he never bothered to put in his wallet, too small to deal with.

He opens the next, and beyond the receipts and _more_ pens, metal tinkles, and rock slides against wood. Red’s— _his_ keyring, the one Red got him, and the fossils they’d dugged out from their visit back in Ambrette sit together, shoved from the surface of his desk long ago, removed from his set of keys. Just because.

What to do. Green takes one of the stones out, then the other, setting them on the varnished desk top. But he realises he’s thinking of a time further along than the one he’s preparing for now; after they’ve been packed and sent back to his apartment in Viridian, and when he opens it again. Was it worth it? Was he even going to keep them? He can throw the keyring, at least; so he tells himself, but—he doesn’t want to.

 _They’re taking up space. There’s no point keeping them._ He keeps talking to himself, but none of the words sink in.

“Yo, big brains,” Green calls, back off from the desk. “Take the stuff in here and stick it in a box when you’re done for me. Thanks.”

That was one way of doing it.

 

* * *

 

The apartment is a mess once they stop, boxes set aside and tidbits still to be sorted, thrown. Ugh, he should just burn the lot. It’d be easier.

The coffee at least helps to declutter his head, warm down his throat. Alakazam is less eager to be idle when it’s actually _time_ to be, opening the balcony doors a jar to let in noise and air, spilling in the afternoon light that turns the greys of the wall to their proper white.

Green takes it in, the cold air soothing to breathe in, inhaling it into his lungs. He’d picked the apartment out of convenience, comfort, and to have his own space. Room sharing was never an option, if he could have helped it, price be damned. Moving in had been as relishing as when he’d first settled into his place in Viridian, a small place just for him, with pieces of old furniture swiped from back home that no one was going to miss. Learning to be independent in the everyday world, having a space be entirely his own.

It had been the same way here, except taking that independence abroad. Now, somewhere down the line, it was nothing but—a shell. A box of tidbits, the sort he didn’t want to deal with. Disconnected to him as any home—or group of rooms, really— would be, when it was never truly yours to begin with.

Just so much a month, each month. An expensive ‘so much’, but that’s what privacy cost in one of the biggest cities on the planet.

“Grum.”

“Hm?” Green blinks the world back into focus, tilts his head to see Alakazam waiting on him, presenting the posters he’d put aside before still rolled up. And some kind of small gift bag, no bigger than his hand, maybe, which halts the annoyance in his stomach.

“Put them with the trash,” he directs for the posters, while reaching for the bag. “—Give me that.”

She floats it to him, the rope straps falling over his hand once out of her hold. Silver and with a shimmer, initials make what he assumes to be the company’s logo in gold. He pops open the top, held closed by a sticky see-through seal that parts easily. Inside sits a slim small box, the length of his palm, but smaller in width.

“Where did you get this?” Green looks over to Alakazam, but she’s already left the room, the posters gone with her. He turns the box in his hand, obviously some kind of jewelry box, or—pen? God, no, who would he ever buy a fancy pen for? But either it was for his sister or some random purchase he made for himself, then forgot about.

He tugs off the lid, no better way of figuring it out. Resting on a bed of soft tissue paper hangs a silver dotted chain leading down to a pair of tags, thin and rectangular, his name and birthdate in black bold letters staring back at him. And below that:

 

_CHAMPION SMART GUY_

  
  
  


It’s a punch to the gut.

Air ejects from his lungs (he hears it, the gasp—), throat constricting all at once, when he realises who, why; when denial and shock collapse into one another; as Green sags in his seat, though too weakened to move.

 _Red. Red. Red_ . It’s the loudest of a hundred words and thoughts filling him to the brim, drowning him, suffocating. _Red got this—Red for him—Red his presence—Red—asshole—Red—why—_ **_Red._ **

It seeps out, and Green chokes as his body claws for air and vengeance and _fuck you Red,_ **_fuck you_ ** _,_ the box tumbling out of his hands, feet wrestling against the carpeted flooring and his fingernails digging into soft leather.

“Fuckin’ _hell,_ Red,” croaks out. Fuck it, just—fuck it all, fuck it.

 

 

 

Fuck _everything._

  


 

 

* * *

 

Sun streams through the hole of the crystal like a golden waterfall, flooding the flowerbeds, walkway and sundial in evening stars. Even all the way along the upper roads deeper into the city, Green can witness them sparkling, turning the circular platform built maybe only for the crystal closer to a dream than reality.

But Green is more grounded to reality than dreams, and to the man sitting on the railing despite the benches at his back, the waters below a long drop to reach.

“Going for a dip?”

Red turns his head as Green walks over to join him, leaning elbows across the metal. Not the most comfortable, but better than sitting his ass on it, like another guy here. There’s a faint smell of the sea below, stronger when the wind runs through his hair. But not as much as Red’s, who he has to scoot for, to better see the side of his face.

“They say it comes from out of space,” Green explains, when the peaceful silence disturbed only by the distant ambience of people, the calls of sea birds above, grows dull. “What do you think? The world’s mysterious enough without throwing stuff from outside it into the mix,” he laughs, low, dismissive, but admits with a pause: “But it’s interesting too, once you think about it.”

Red gives him nothing but a short hum in acknowledgement. Off-putting, but he’s like that sometimes. Was like that after he came back from his holiday on Mt. Silver, barely seeming to pay any attention to what was going on around him. Leaving Green to fill the spaces between them, when he cared to.

It was easy to, though. He does it now, sharing the research being conducted on the crystal, the possible connection to mega evolution, their own theories behind the meaning of the phenomenon, the potential to create man-made stones. Up until the pretty sight and gentle breezes gets older and colder, and he tugs on Red’s sleeve to get him down, c’mon, we’ll get food, your treat to me, loser.

He’s turned on his heel when Red tugs him back, bringing them face to face. A hand reaches around the back of his neck and pulls Green in, lips and mouths pressed hard despite how soft _(chapped)_ Red’s lips usually are, the taste of his mouth desperate.

It sucks the air out Green, and for a while, he forgets how to breathe. This too, Red’s been like recently, spontaneous, _rough,_ the tips of his fingers burrowing into skin and flesh. The air is hot between them when Red gasps, freeing them, Green’s heart already loud in his ears and his dick twitching below. But _this,_ out in public from _Red—_

“What was that for?” Green pants lightly, tipping his forehead to Red’s, the pressure of his hands on his neck and arm only starting to release. But Green takes a hold of Red’s shoulders in turn, to keep him there.

“To remember why I’m here,” Red replies—and _fuck,_ what the hell did his heart do just there, no blood, don’t go straight to his face.

Green exhales hard, sharp, squeezing the shoulders underneath, tempted to rattle this damn guy or—or just to kiss Red again, soft and sweet and words that shouldn’t be there coating his lips.

Red pushes him back, a brush of scarlet going across his cheek and covering his ears, throwing death his way in a single glare.

“Don’t push it,” Red warns sulkily, hurrying on, leaving Green to catch him up.  


 

 

After a sneaky assessment of his ass, that is.

  
  
  
  


* * *

* * *

* * *

  


They peer into the widened hoop, a hydreigon trudging around in the foreground of the ruined castle, winds howling harsher than in their reality amidst trees and dead leaves. The only immediate life inside that window, the human figure they’re searching for nowhere to be seen.

_‘Nope-nope-nope! No human!’_

_‘That’s where you sent him?’_

_‘Then_ **_FIND_ ** _him!’_

_‘I cannn’t~  Mountain’s too big~ Silly human, hu hu hu.’_

The growl that Snorlax releases begins to rise into a roar, but Blastoise holds him back, keeping at bay the obvious urge to lunge for their mysterious troublemaker. The small pokèmon darts behind the back of its hoop to hide anyway, giggling obnoxiously.

 _‘Then let’s go, and we can look for him!’_ Pikachu announces, far more invested in finding their trainer than the tensions, jumping in place. _‘Let’s go!’_

 _‘Wait,’_ Blastoise interrupts. _‘If they can’t find him, we need a different way.’_

 _‘What the hell are you saying?’_ barks Snorlax.

 _‘You.’_ Blastoise turns to their weird little floaty prankster guy. _‘You can go anywhere?’_

 _‘Anywhere in the world!’_ they chirp.

_‘Cool. Know the big human settlement? Lumo.’_

_‘Lumo?’_

_‘Lumi.’_

_‘Lumi, Lumo, Lumi, Lumooo…’_

_‘Lumiose,’_ Venusaur helps. _‘Tall city with lights.’_

 _‘Starry lights!’_ Pikachu amends.

 _‘Ooooo,’_ the prankster coos back around from its hoop, its tail—which makes up its entire lower body—waving below. _‘I know some of those!’_

Good enough for Blastoise. _‘We need to find a human there.’_

  
  


* * *

* * *

* * *

  


Green’s seen this in movies, the sort he doesn’t care to remember anything else about. Throwing junk once personal, moving on, or so the idea goes. He’ll need more than throwing a necklace into a lake for a real cathartic release (a really good training session maybe, beating Champions and any other suckers in a world tournament _might_ just do the trick), but this may help: the last reminder of that asshole, a good-bye to dumb mistakes.

He stands at the edge, the small box in hand, Machamp a silent witness; and he pulls back his elbow, casting uncertainties to the wind—

and his back hits the ground hard, the same time when something even harder shudders the land around him, the waters projectiling out and sudden cries of people.

Pain shoots from the back of his head to his front, and he groans, peeling eyelids open to see it’s Machamp over him; just a blurry greyish blue thing at first, and then a muscular arm unfurling from around him. Another pair, Green realises next, crouched to the ground, keeping his weight off his trainer.

Green pushes his elbows against the dirt, supporting his own way while crawling out from under Machamp, impatient to wait for the pokèmon to stand. He hears splashing, frantic splashing; aggressive yells that only a pokèmon could make, and a high-pitched squeaking that too, only a pokèmon could make.

And sees a soft, golden yellow right in his face, patting annoyingly at his cheeks.

“What—” he shoves the fur thing back, who continues to—squeak, that’s the one squeaking. Green squeezes his eyes tight, brings them open again and sees as the world falls back into place, pushed up onto his knees.

It’s Pikachu; not just a pikachu, but _that_ Pikachu. Red’s Pikachu, and Blastoise, and—was that Venusaur helping Snorlax from the lake, flailing around?

Green stares.

  


And stares.

  
  
  


“What. The. _Hell!”_

  
  
  
  


* * *

* * *

* * *

  


The higher up you are, the thinner the air gets, harder to breath. Funny, when you imagine the sky to be full of all sorts; clouds, stars, the sun. your dreams. It should have a lot more air when it has all that.

Red’s used to it though, the years living in an erratic climate; one day welcoming, giving, and the next punishing, if you should ever forget where it is you are. That’s what he loved about Mt. Silver: its unpredictability, how unforgiving, yet being endless with what it offered all at once. He was a glutton for punishment, and maybe that said a fair bit about him. But he was kinda out of practice, getting soft on pizza and feathery beds in Lumiose.

Red drinks in what he can of the air, moist and suffocating. That was a thing too; a mist, maybe steam (it was warm, sticking to his skin; another thing to deal with), maybe leading to a hot spring he had yet still to find.

So he continued walking, and walking, as he’d been doing for far too long.

Another funny thing was that he found his hydreigons, back around that old castle. And on a mountain—had his thought with Blastoise involved a mountain, when they’d first been getting a hang of Mega Evolution? He couldn’t remember anymore, that an adventure ago, a life time or so. Blastoise wasn’t here, to help, by shrugging nonchalantly.

He had a time and a half though, to think about a hundred things up here, most funny. Funny, like how he’d been dreaming and begging himself for a trip like this. Funny, how it turned out like this. Be careful what you spend your days and nights wishing for: You may just end up separated from half your team with little to no supplies, wishing you were in bed with a guy who probably still wants to kick your ass.

No probably. But honestly, an ass kicking would be better than this.

Red heaves, slow and steadily (as steadily as he can) through the growing heat, Lapras’s ball clenched in his hand, the other on  the twisted spoon Sabrina had given him, glowing pink, his only source of light for it. (Funny, his glow stick is a _spoon.)_ It’s unusual how thick the steam is, and it _has_ to be steam. He’s never been in a mist like this, and he can hear what sounds like billowing, somewhere.

A breathing organ, hoarse and deep; and Red can’t tell if its living or stationary, when he can’t even see the ground before his feet, let alone anything a hundred meters ahead.

He slows his steps, thinking to let out Charizard instead.

And of course that, as went his luck, was when the figure looms impossibly through the thick blanket of white, a cherry red thing, dotted lights piercing brighter.

Red halts suddenly, turning still. There’s no way the thing can see him. But then, Red remembers the spoon in his hand; and stupidly, thrusts the arm of the hand holding it behind his back—and the thing _roars_. The dotted lights split apart, and Red takes a gamble, throwing himself down to a ground that might not be there, a searing pain shooting up his arm as a sound slices the air above his head.

He ignores the pain pulsing, burning, the scrapes on his skin and rocks digging into his jeans. The creature is growling, a sound heavy and deep, and Lapras’s ball is no longer in his hand—where, where? His instincts are telling him to run, but he can’t see anything; searching the solid wall of steam, stinging his eyes for the effort, clenching shut despite the urge to spot that red and white ball. Stone crunches under each heavy footstep, and Red swings his head down, cursing inwardly as a hand scrambles for Charizard’s ball.

Power builds somewhere ahead of him, sucking inward, a familiar sound. Red gambles with the idea of throwing Charizard’s ball into the nether, safer away from him than with, when the earth rumbles, and—

and he hears nothing but the blasting engulfing his ears, threatening to burst his eardrums with how close it is.

  
  


Close.

  
  
  


But he’s _alive._

Red recognises—with the world mute, the pounding of his heart lost to his ears, his surroundings dark, but hidden behind clenched eyes—that truth, that reality, with the fact that he even can.

His body hasn’t caught up with this fact, already exhausted before any of this, but lagging to follow his commands to look up, to see what had happened. Still, the world is clearer than he’d thought it’d to be: the fog of steam has been pushed far and apart, and a pink shimmer curtains his view, a bubble he realises with a look about him, over his being.

And ahead, snapping his attention to where it should be, the red, four-legged figure with circular appendages blasting  torrents of water of to a shadow with glowing white eyes suspended in the air, meeting the attack with a protective, transparent wall.

They’re slim in form, lower body thickening to a purple tail stiff where it curls upward, a a rounding end. It’s familiar, and they screech in a way that connects to the core of Red; his eyes widen as it all clicks, and he opens his mouth with the name on his tongue when he’s thrown in a sudden eruption, the sky in his eyes one moment,

  


darkness the next.

  
  


 

 

 

* * *

* * *

* * *

  


 

Red didn’t used to like Green’s little pad in the heart of Lumiose.

He still doesn’t on a superficial level. The furnituring and paint choices are bland and stuffy that  remind him of waiting rooms and lobbies of pricey buildings, and the few posters they (he) stuck on the walls to liven things up didn’t help much in the end.

It reminded him of the sort of world that didn’t include him. With his worn clothing sewn of tears, the last home Red had known was littered by tables marked by tea cups and accidents, ten cushions piled on one chair, faded carpets and his mother’s favourites ornaments. Red didn’t know how to settle inside somewhere so— _clean_ , for the longest time.

But then, there were days. Days inside that little pad that made him happy. When he was making a drink, listening to Green complaining about this and that. When Green’s music was blaring, the sound of the shower running. When they ate, laughed, complained.

When they didn’t say much at all, but they were there together, the only two that mattered.

Green’s skin, his scent, his presence. Touching, tasting. Holding, taking it in.

Red’s eyes would soften, and he would see the warmth in the corners of the place they made a home.

It took him distance to realise that was what had become, and how, so easily, losing Green had made the building turn cold once more. Nothing better than a waiting room, a hobby, for someone with steeper pockets than him.

  
  


Because homes were defined by the people that love you, and not by the walls around you.


	13. Chapter 13

The sun was visible that morning, high above a layer of clouds. Red’s boots pressed down snow as soft as cotton fluff, body snug in his coat, a blanket wrapped tight around his shoulders, just in case. It was hard to see past his nose, each time his breath as thick as the clouds.

But the pokèmon isn’t far from the cave’s mouth, looking out over the open sky from the mountain’s edge, quiet in its viewing.

“Hey. You didn’t get to see this in your cave that often, huh?”

Their back stays facing Red, motionless, not stirring to his words. Red knows they hear him though; that’s just the way they are: still. When they’re up in their own head, when they’re on guard. Always, all the time. Except when a battle’s _really_ good.

Red walks to stand by their side, the top of his head barely coming to their shoulders. They spare him a glance, then look back out at the early sun.

“Are you cold?” Red asks, touching a hand to its arm. There’s a soft, pink shimmering not far from their skin; and in a flicker, the barrier allows him to really touch the body underneath.

Red smiles inwardly and out, giddy at the gesture.

“Wow, you can even keep the cold at bay… it’d be a lot better if I could do that too, haha.”

He takes back his hand and shares in the scenery ahead, the silence that hangs easy in an air usually dominated by blizzards. Sometimes they got to see mornings—even days—like this. And today, he was even getting to stand with this guy, enjoying it.

On top of the world, invincible champions!

“When you’re this high up,” Red says, sunlight catching in his eyelashes, “and you see all the world… it’s like you can do anything. And there’s so much more out there, waiting for you. That’s because it’s the tallest mountain in the world—the mountain of possibilities. If you can get this far, you can go anywhere.”

Red pulls on the blanket around himself, gathering the bottom before it can graze the snow. He turns, rounds the pokèmon’s back, and with a small hop—throws the blanket over their shoulders, catching its weird neck tube thingy. Its shoulders are flat enough to keep the blanket in place, and Red rounds back around, purple eyes widely greeting him, watching him from above. Red tucks the edges around and in, cocooning the pokèmon dutifully, grinning the entire time at his work and the surprise inflicted.

“There!” he finally gives the blanket a hearty pat. “That’s warmer, isn’t it? Gifts from friends are always better than just stuff you can do for yourself.”

Okay, so maybe it’s useless with _this_ psychic type’s abilities, but it’s the thought that counts. And it’s good to look up to a quizzical look, so unsure, uncertain. Caught off-guard for once, but in a good way—so Red can only hope. They’re always hard to read even after all this time, but that’s why it helps to be an open book in turn. Don’t be dishonest. Be straightforward. Let people learn about you first. That’s what he learnt.

“You’ll understand one day,” Red promises a little cryptically, just for fun. “And it’ll be amazing when you do.”

The problem may be that that people still don’t understand you, but at least they’ll know to trust what they see in time.

“The world isn’t as scary as you think.”

 

Some things just take time to understand.

  


* * *

  
  
  


The sun was visible that morning, a blanket of snow, and nothing else.

 

“Hey, big guy? ….Big guy, where’d you go?

 

Mewtwo?

 

Mewtwo!”

* * *

 

_Mewtwo!_

 

Red’s eyes fly open, the world not as fast and tumbling as it should be but grounded at his back. He keeps still, reeling beneath his flesh, staring at nothing but dark. At brown. Solid, textured.

The ceiling of a cave he finally realises, but his attention is pulled by the grey face staring at him unblinking just in sight. Purple eyes, an inhuman stillness. Except for a bulbous tail end, slowly waving behind its head.

“Mewtwo?” Red whispers. He doesn’t mean to, but his throat is dry, incredibly dry. He starts to pick himself up from where he lays, but his muscles ache, making him wince. Mewtwo reaches from where they sit, rounded fingers on Red arm, hovering in place while Red finally manages to seat himself upright.

He’s dazed, tired, the low dark—lit by a spherical light, magically made and glowing nearby—making his vision fuzzy, but his body not as pained as his brain initially decided him. At the same time he registers everything, he thinks back to the last moments he can remember, while unable to take his eyes off the figure before him. A dream, except reality. A past a hundred miles in the sky, but here right before him.

Mewtwo stares back at him, but quickly lowers their gaze, and stands.

The world outside isn’t as Red last remembered it. It’s covered in grass and flowers, the air fresh _(fresh!)_ in his lungs, and he can see everything, so much, and it’s— _bizarre._ He doesn’t know what to trust, this, or a just-as-bizarre reality on top of a foggy mountain. Red chews on the inside of his cheek as he follows the lead of this figure of his past up a small incline, and what had been his previous state: lost, hopeless.

Was he dreaming? A dream before dying? Was he dead?

All three?

Jigglypuff, foongus and more watch him from the long-bladed grass, keeping their heads low. Even if this was some kind of dream before death, he might as well trust the figure of the guy he asked to trust him, once upon a time ago.

And for it he finds as they reach the top, green grass gives way to the large bodies of Charizard and Lapras, hanging out where a stream sits split in the ground.

Red stops dead in his tracks, no more than for a second before he’s sprinting, legs buckling under him, and like hell he cares, their names spilling out of his throat under their louder cries. He gets an hooked around Charizard’s neck, while Lapras’s head knocks into his and nearly pushes him down. Charizard’s soon does the same, but Red keeps himself standing, somehow, their heads rubbing mercilessly against his cheeks, his laughter hurting to let free.

Remembering, the split second he thought about sending their pokèballs away, to safety. No, Lapras already lost, and him—

 

No, it didn’t matter now. They were here.

 

They were together.

 

* * *

 

Red drinks feverishly from the stream a little later, washing his face and arms and appreciating the sensation. A cluster of poliwag with a poliwrath hover farther along, watching as the other pokèmon had before: uncertain, curious. Red watches them in turn, but the poliwrath soon puts out a hand protectively, eyes narrowing in his direction. He looks away, the message received.

That was fine. Washed and refreshed enough, Red goes to survey the lower land where Mewtwo had brought him from, Charizard practically clinging to his side, Lapras watching their backs. He spots Mewtwo easily, a few bobbing heads of what might be babies surrounding them, some more coming out from the grass. Elsewhere around the land, he notices small huts sitting like bumps in the grass, bridges made from wood that curve overhead with no sense or purpose. Maybe they were for playing; or maybe Red didn’t understand the infrastructure of pokèmon habitats. It’s not like he knew how busy grass traffic could get.

Red walks the hillside carefully, despite Charizard nearly tumbling him over by keeping so close, while Lapras uses an underbelly of ice to slide down quicker, and first. The pokèmon nearby scatter back into the grass, rattling and rustling it, and Red stops where he is. A single curious igglybuff pokes its head out and begins to waddle towards him, until it’s pulled back into the grass with a squeak.

So, kinda a mixed reception going on.

In contrast, Mewtwo approaches them calmly, a group of babies and their evolutions—no more than six in all—in tow, and presents to Red and his companions berries carried telekinetically. They make a show of the offer, and then gesture to the others, the wild pokèmon.

Ah, sure. He can do that. Red takes the berry—a pecha, juicy soft when he presses in—and lowers onto one knee, holding it to anyone willing to take it; with a smile, his other hand rested on his knee. In view, but limp.

Still the pokèmon are unsure, casting doubtful glances between one another. Until then, maybe by some trust in Mewtwo than for him, a long-eared pokèmon Red’s never seen before, soft yellow fur with a red fluffy inside approaches him on all fours, hesitating only when Red lowers the berry down for them to easily take.

They pause, wondering—and then chomp it between fangs with a muffled whine before scarpering. Soon after, more pokèmon echo the action, but some stay close by, or even in his vicinity. It’s cute, if not helping with how surreal all of this is to Red. But he catches a glimpse of Mewtwo’s face when they don’t notice; and he sees a warmth, their eyes not so alert, but soft.

An expression he never saw on them before, he’s sure.

 

* * *

 

“Everyone really likes you here,” Red brings up later, finding Mewtwo standing by the cave mouth they came out before.

Mewtwo looks at Red, then back out at the field. Red comes to the side of them—shorter than he remembers; how high did he used to reach on them?—and leans against the smooth rock, bending his knees and slipping down.

“You really made a life for yourself. How far is this from where you found us?” Red tilts up his head and Mewtwo points out, above the treetops and out of sight. “Far away? Not close?” They shake their head. “Wow, that had to be a ride. But...how did you find us?”

Mewtwo brings out their hand again, and this time a pink bar of energy—glowing, bright, magical—emerges, and from that materialises the twisted spoon, purple and radiating softly as it had before.

With it, a few things finally click into place. Sabrina, the sudden shock; the flash of colour in her eyes.

Or, well—no, it didn’t really explain much, but maybe it was connected. Maybe he needed to think a little more. Maybe, another time. For now Red’s lifts his shoulders, quietly chuckling to himself, hanging his arms off the top of his knees.

Here he was, right next to Mewtwo. Feeling a boy much younger, but far parted from that boy, too.

“I was worried you went back to the cave or some other one, into hiding,” he eventually says,  fingers idly rubbing at the skin of his arms. “Guess it was stupid of me to let you stay out… I thought it was okay then, but I didn’t want you to be stuck in a ball _all_ the time. I thought someone as strong as you would have fun climbing Mt. Silver with me, but—there was a lot more going on with you, wasn’t there?”

More than a battle could explain, or a boy dreaming of bigger heights could realise.

The canopies of the forest nestling them shake, and a bird cries as it flies somewhere unseen.

“You’ve really found something great out here.”

 

Sometimes, it’s distance you need to find yourself.

 

* * *

 

Mewtwo feeds them berries from the forest, a field just for growing them tucked away and cared for by the other pokèmon as well. They play games of hide and seek and catch with some of the residents, a round of catch going awry when the stone turns out to be a ditto, and the wigglytuff and jigglypuff sing at night when the noctowl and amoonguss keep guard of the village.

Or so Red vaguely recalls, except he wakes up back in the cave the next morning, nothing but strange scribbles painted over his face to wash off in the stream.

He deals with that first. Then, afterwards:

“I need to find my other pokèmon,” he explains to Mewtwo. He’s got his bag (thankfully), Lapras and Charizard’s pokèballs (and others empty). Mewtwo understands, and offers them food to take with them, as well as a guide in themself.

Where to, Red wasn’t sure, but he didn’t know where they were either, so they couldn’t get more lost than they already were.

An amoonguss comes to greet them from the forest, and he and Mewtwo approach—but a man comes into view, old and white-haired, stocky and built.

“A human?” he says, eyeing Red under bushy eyebrows.

 

A strange addition to strange events. His name is Wulfric.

 

“They don’t let many humans around here. They like to keep out of their way, and keep them out of theirs. I’m surprised this one came out to help you back to the city, though. Well, without kicking you out the rough way!”

He’s more easy-going than he looks, and freely tells Red where they are: just outside a city called Snowbelle plenty of miles away from Kiloude or the mountains Red had been (or, the intentional ones). The distance is so great that the old man raises both his brows when Red mentions the city.

“You came from there? I don’t know how you did it. That must’ve been some flight!”

Red wonders if to explain— _some weird creature sent me to a castle and then I got lost and another weird thing steamed and attacked me and I should probably be dead_ —but he thinks about the pokèmon not with him, and decides he doesn’t care about the details. He needs to get back, whatever it takes. That’s all that really matters.

 

* * *

 

Mewtwo stops following them once the sounds of a city begin to grow through the canopies. Red takes the time to say goodbye, to give them a hug before leaving with Wulfric to the pokècentre. To get his pokèmon checked out, while the old man sees if he can find him some help getting to Kiloude, or just a spare pair of clothes that’d fit his size.

Red’s glad to get the bag off his back, and for the hot tea he’s gulping down, thanks to the pity of the centre nurse. He cradles it, knowing he should probably be enjoying it the _slow way,_ but then it nearly doesn’t matter when— _”Red!”_

He startles, blinking rapidly, and then his eyes widen: and Blue is standing there, shaking his shoulders with a carrier bag rattling off her arm and filling up his vision.

“I thought you were dead! You didn’t answer any of my texts.” She leans away, brow furrowing. “Where have you been?”

 

What a question and a half.

 

His pokèmon don’t take long to be seen—”Merci!”—and Red clicks their balls back to his belt, taking his drink back from Blue.

“So you got lost in some mountains and ended up over here?” The heavy brow hasn’t changed; instead it digs in deeper, and Blue waves a forefinger. “Then...how did your pokèmon get all the way to Green from Kiloude the other week?”

Red pauses. “Green?”

“Yeah! He was texting me, asking if I’d seen you. But I’ve been training here in Wulfric, so I don’t know why—”

 _“Wait,_ ” he cuts in, placing a hand on her arm. “What did you say, my pokèmon? What have they got to do with Green?”

“Green’s got them,” she replies. Red stands up, the clothes on his lap tumbling to the floor. “Hey, slow down! I can text him, you know!”

He turns, nearly stepping on the clothes, not really caring. “Can you?”

“Yes!” She plants a finger on her chin, thoughtful. “Hmm, what do you think he’s been doing though? Can you put a captured pokèmon in a new ball?”

 

* * *

 

 

Despite Blue’s self-inflicted distractions and initial idea to text, she calls Green instead.

“Do you want to talk to him?” She offers, holding out the phone.

“N—no,” Red blurts without thinking, the embarrassment hitting a moment later. Blue just shrugs, putting it to her ear.

 

They wait.

 

And wait.

 

And wait.

 

And—

 

“—Voicemail,” Blue announces, flipping the phone shut with a _click_. “Guess we’ll have to try later. I don’t even know if he’s in Lumiose. He went looking for you.”

“Where?” Red asks, impatience manifesting as prickling down his arms, rushing into his feet.

“I dunno? It’s been a while, it could be anywhere. _But,”_ she hastens to add, probably seeing the twitchy states of his fingers, “he might answer later. Let me send him a text, I’ll call again, and we can see what comes up.”

She leans on her knees, chestnut hair falling over her shoulders. Looking up at him under lengthy eyelashes, her hands pressing up her cheeks.

 _“I_ trust Green with your pokèmon. Don’t you?”

Red stops squeezing his hands, only acknowledging then he had been doing so—squeezing, stop, squeezing, stop. He misses quickly the pressure it took and released from his heart though, and so he floods his lungs with air, releases that instead; to loosen up, maybe. Hopefully.

But her words do a better job, repeated in his head.

 

_I trust Green._

 

_Don't you?_

 

“Yeah,” he replies, and means it.

 

* * *

 

 

Green’s been high in the snowy mountains up north.

“‘Because where _else_ would that moron be?’” mimics Blue, mouth bloated and sounding as if stuffed with cheese.

The call comes two days later, with a shove for “not answering _your_ phone”, and a pout. Red gives her a smile in apology, hiding the deceit of it after in a hug that’s not as false.

“Well! That’s fine.” She pats his back, then pulls away. “I told him you’d meet him at Couriway. It’s not far from here. Just check a map, make-up. Then come and hang out if you want to after.”

Her hands are behind her, her face brightened by a smile and brown eyes.

“Think you’re ready for the scary part?” She pauses, then picks up a hand to the side of her mouth. “ _Seeing_ him.”

There’s a bolt through his body—dread—that tells him his answer. Funny ( _funny_ , here we are again), when he would have been relieved to see him before. Now?

 

Now?

 

“Yes,” Red says, forcing courage up his stomach and into his throat.

Now, _what ifs_ dormant in him would be the terror before any off-road trip threatening the end of his life. But he wouldn’t let them to stop him.

 

* * *

 

But first: he heads back to the winding forest.

Winding is the right word, the paths making no sense, soon disappearing into tree roots and leaf beds. Red had been late to check on the last way through if there were markings or cairns to give direction, but there wasn’t. But what there was now—and honestly, he’s not easily spooked, but it _has_ to have something to do with how dark it is—was a feeling as if the trees were watching him, haunting figures standing tall and erect.

 _Mewtwo,_ Red thinks, but not just to himself (he hopes). _Can you hear me?_

 

_Can you find me?_

 

_I want to see you one more time._

 

It’s not that crazy to try, is it?

 

No crazier than growing more sure and certain that the trees _were_ watching him, making the hairs on the back of his neck stand straight (or was that the cold?). He tugs in his coat, stares ahead defiantly, an urge to call out on his teeth. He can chase after them. The trees. That’s right; he wants to chase the trees.

(Deeper into the forest he goes, keeping as straight as line as he can. Meaning: probably not a straight line.)

It’s less stupid an action than coming out here, Red realises at some point, without asking Wulfric for directions. He was some self-appointed human guardian of the village, familiar enough with the forest. Had told him not to talk to anyone else about it before, after they’d gotten to the city.

_’They’re pokémon that’ve been abandoned or betrayed by humans. They work together to keep the village safe.‘_

So sometimes, Red does things and misses the obvious. That’s the way people work, isn’t it?

Sometimes even, when you least expect it, a tree will begin to pick you up, and it’ll take you half a second to figure out what’s just happened.

 

—Oh. Right.

 

Time for alarm.

Red tries to scramble, but the tree _—the tree_ _pokèmon_ _!—_ hugs him tighter, childish giggles sounding all around. Wood scrapes against his arm and Red struggles for a ball at his belt. No time to be lax, no idea what tricks it plays—

 _(No)_ indicates a presence( _?_ ); not around him, but in.

Red pauses when his fingers touch the pokèball, and searches outwardly at what he can see above green leaves and bark too close. Hollow tree stumps giggle, fluttering past. They’re watching—but they mean no harm. Mean no harm.

This is safe. Not a trick.

He knows this, because he’s told. He knows _them_ , the speaker, or so he believes. Or it could be a trick. A good trick. A life-threatening trick.

He trusts, where maybe he shouldn’t,

 

and the tree carries him into the depths of the forest.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Until finally, it stops.

It slowly opens wooden arms (branches?), fingertip roots forming steps to the ground for use of human feet. Stationary trees ring around them, a single stump at the centre of the small clearing.

When Red peeks over the stiff arm-branch, attempting to make use of the rooted steps, Mewtwo stands on the other side, waiting.

 

He has _such_ smart friends.

“Hey,” Red greets, too casual sounding in his ears when he’s literally climbing down the arm of a tree, throwing it as dumb of a “Thanks” for the ride. The one-eyed pokèmon scuttles back (giggle? Did it just giggle?), the tree stumps hanging around its tree-top, eyes glowing like embers.

It was kind of…..

 

Cute?

 _—Focus._ Red turns back to Mewtwo, hand searching for a hat rim that isn’t there, and slipping into his hair instead, scratching at his scalp.

“Sorry, I forgot to ask directions. But I was leaving, probably, and I thought I wouldn’t see you again. I know we—I— _we_ said goodbye before, but…”

Goodbyes. Goodbyes were awkward, fading on his tongue. A little useless feeling, but also, sometimes, there was more you wanted _(needed)_ to say. But how? How do you always find a way to give form to a feeling, a turbulent?

It was the problem with Red, tilting a foot onto its side, chewing briefly on his lower lip.

“I wanted to say,” and he breathes, grabbing at the bottom of his shirt, “—thank you, for remembering me, and thinking about me. After everything you made for yourself.”

When you didn’t have to remember a dumb kid with dreams, once on top of a snowy mountain.

Red smiles, curling his lips into his mouth; squinting a little, refusing exit to the emotions building up his throat, in the corners of his being. Mewtwo just stands the way they always do—and that’s okay. As long as they know, and Red knows they knows; he can walk away, nodding to the travel pokèmon, hoping he can get a ride back—

Limbs wrap around him, a blanket of warmth; the kind that only a friend can offer.

 

_(Thank you.)_

  
  
  
  
  
  


And then he’s in Snowbelle City, within a second that feels like eternity, trapped inside the blink of an eye.

 

_(Good bye, Red.)_

 

 

 

* * *

 

He finds Couriway two days later, and waits.

They meet amongst the waterfalls, his pokèmon free of any pokèballs, rushing over the instant their eyes connect. Their texture, their faces, their sounds and presence—they overwhelm Red, consuming him completely, Lapras and Charizard’s balls rattling at his belt. Pikachu won’t get off his shoulder for anybody, and Red tries to be shorter for Venusaur’s head, taller for Snorlax’s rough affections, who knocks him (gently) ((for him)), as if to say ‘where have you been, huh, where were you gone’.

Blastoise stands aside, snorting and chuckling. Red refuses to leave him out, knocking fist bumps to his shell.

In the far recesses of his mind, Red knows that Green is over there, somewhere, if he were just to look. But there’s no pulling away from anyone until finally their giddiness quells, allowing his world to become more than his immediate companions.

And then he sees Green standing, a pursed mouth and arms folded—maybe stood that way the entire time. Another emotional roller coaster waiting to happen.

“Let’s meet back here,” Red suggests; his voice unsteady, the rest of him too. It’s not an intentional delay of the inevitable, but, some things come first. For him. For Green, too.

Green doesn’t speak. He just stares, quiet; and then leaves, gone without a word or sound.

 

* * *

 

 

So, again:

They meet amongst the waterfalls with street lamps brimming, the sky darker above their heads, and them the only two that matter.

Neither say hello. Red motions to the wooden bridge leading outward with a nod of his head, and Green follows, as well as the tension of their relationship.

“Thanks for taking care of them.”

“Mm.”

“I heard you went up a mountain.”

“Mm.”

“Me too.”

The stone houses begin to lessen around them, the chill night is a welcome distraction. Red lets it creep up his fingers and palms, stiffen them, coat his cheeks and ice his lungs. His gut has that feeling that could involve vomiting if it gets any worse, but he’s not quite there, nowhere close.

He was so sure before, knew exactly where they were, what had gone wrong.

_(But what if, what if.)_

“Where are we going?” Green asks. There’s only a scattering of houses now, more roads and signs, the sight of nearby fields and tiny wooden fences.

“Just down here,” Red says, off-course and onto grass, a steep incline in the land that hopefully isn’t more a sudden drop. They’re in luck, but they still need to tip-toe the grass to descend.

The final drop, the last moment of freedom. Green comes down in a heavy breath, his jacket rustling, finding his balance. The lights don’t reach them down here; there’s nothing but them, and the decision of what they will be from there on.

 

 

 

So, it starts:

 

 

 

 

“I didn’t know we were dating.”

 

 _“What?_ How didn’t you _know?”_

 

“We never said.”

 

“I thought it was pretty obvious _.”_

 

“I’m not good at the obvious sometimes.”

 

“You don’t _not_ know that you’re dating, Red.”

 

“You treated it as if we were.”

 

“ _Yeah_. But looks like I got it wrong.”

 

“It wasn’t _wrong_ —”

 

“If it wasn’t _wrong_ , then what the hell was it?”

 

“It— 

                       

 It was good.”

 

“ **... … ...** ”

 

“It’s not like we weren’t happy—”

 

“You were planning on going.”

 

“—?”

 

“Well, didn’t you want to? You were seriously happy spacing out half the time,

thinking about where else you could be?

We weren’t even a thing to you.

This was just one of your stops before you upped and left.”

 

“... … ...“

 

“ See?

 

You can’t even deny it."

 

“No—” 

“No, Red. Whatever this was to you, I don’t want to be a part of it.

 

You got it?

 

Whatever you’ve got to say—”

 

“Let me speak, asshole!”

 

“And what the hell you got to say, you—!?”

 

“I’m not you! I didn’t know what you wanted! 

I didn’t know you’d want a relationship with me!

Of course I wanted to go travelling! It’s all I know!

I kept asking, I wanted to go with you!”

 

“We _went_ on trips!—”

 

“But you never wanted to go anywhere else!”

 

“What, so this is all _my_ fault? Because I didn’t want to go _frolicking—”_

 

“No!”

 

“Well I guess we’re both just pretty shitty at being together, aren’t we.”

 

“Oh, shut up—”

 

“What? It’s the truth.”

 

“So the hell what.

 

Arghh.

 

You’re so infuriating sometimes.”

 

 _“I_ am?”

 

“All the time!”

 

“Look in a fucking mirror, buddy.”

  
  
  


“Battle me, asswipe.”

 

“Why the hell would I.”

 

“Because the one who wins gets to beat the other’s ass into the ground.”

 

_“Fine._

 

I’ll get through your pokémon, and then it’s your turn!”

  
  
  


 

 

 

_—_

 

A thought:

  
  
  
  
  


_How do you define Green and me?_

_A pair of idiots, but Green the bigger one. Since you’re asking me._

_We always rile each other up. Even when we were friendly back as kids, Green always had to be the smartest, the best, always the one to show off. It really got under my skin, but I liked it too. Working to beat him, to have a rival at absolutely everything._

_Then, life got a little too real— a lot too real, really quick. And then there wasn’t an ‘us’. Not me and Green, but me, and my pokèmon._

_I don’t regret it, but when I got back from Mt. Silver, and all that time had passed, and all I wanted to do is keep moving—_

_I didn’t know what ‘us’ was. But some form of it would always exist, even if it was just the ‘us’ in the past._

_But then I wanted more, and more than just more, and I guess I didn’t realise how deep it went._

_Well..._

_I’m not sure how deep it does go. But I want to find out._

_I want to explore this new ‘us’; who Green’s become over the years, and how we’ll fit together._

_Sure, maybe we’ll screw it up. But I can take that better when I know—on some level—on some level better than before—what we are._

_And that's—_

 

_Together._

 

_Us. Together._

  


_Yeah. I'm okay with that._

  
  
  
  


_—_

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


_Red’s a fucking moron._

  


_Fine._ **_Fine_ ** _, so I’m still fired up._

 _That doesn’t mean he isn’t a moron. He always has been, on some level. But he’s been good too: at keeping up with me, actually being more than just a doofus (_ **_some_ ** _of the time). Making something of himself. Who’d guess it?_

 _(Okay, alright. I did. He’s not_ that _impossible.)_  

 _But then he has his bad jokes, and just flinging himself where he wants. And fine, maybe I like that. Maybe those are things I like about him._  

 _Bickering. Hanging out. The little small things only he’d think to do, or say. And sure, I could’ve been more direct about being interested. But who wouldn’t get the idea after that long?_  

 _Right. Red._  

 _Of course it would be Red._  


_Look. I don’t care if he wants to go travelling. Just as long as he makes some time for us (_ _me_ _), then he can go up whatever mountain he likes._

_But I don’t want to fall—_

 

_I don’t want to be—_

 

_I don’t want to be the only one who ended up feeling something real._

 

_Or the only one who would._

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


_—_

 

Red puts a clammy hand on Green’s shoulder. Green pushes it away, the weak exertion making it more of a slap; but Red’s hand slips off him in the same awkward manner, exhaustion not one-sided.

There’s no more fight in them, but that doesn’t mean they don’t try, Red reaching for him again, Green grabbing his hands, pushing them down, Red pushing in. He leans in his body weight and Green steps back, so Red steps in; and there they topple over, to a grass so cold Red feels it above Green, who’s growling _“Ge’off”,_ feebly.

Red rolls onto his side, slipping onto his back. The stars are awake now, twinkling distantly, orchestrated by the monstrous noise of their ragged breathing. The immediate grass is more inviting than anything so far up, absorbing the flush heat of his body. Cold, wonderful, cooling, melting into him. The best grass he’s ever experienced.

He brings his hands down from the sides of his head, knocking Green on one side in the process. Knocking his hand—or so the feel of skin tells him—slight and brief, but it’s gone before Red can do more than brush knuckles with a couple of fingers.

His fingers twitch without pause, wanting. He wants that touch of Green back.

Green attempts to form words over his laboured breathing, but it comes out as grumbling at best. Red smoothes the grass now barren between them, pressing his hand down flat, pretending the dirt beneath would curl up and embrace it, slide its fingers between his; be a second best replacement, or something.

But there’s a hand right beside him, somewhere, and why go for the second best, or last?

That’s all the convincing Red needs to search where it’s gone, following the elbow to the arm, the arm to Green’s stomach. The hand flies up, resisting instantly, but Red grabs it, pulls better than when Green pulls back, and brings it to his chest. He traps it there between skin and bones and stubbornness, dealing with a small struggle that soon enough dies.

His eyes close and his heart skips, all for that small, forced touch.

Green’s breathing is calmer now. His, too; closer to a sigh or whisper, the only other presence. Red eventually turns, using more energy than his body cares to extend, but he gets there, shoulder bearing the weight of his body. He can see the outline of Green’s face from this position. It doesn’t take long for Green to look, then look away.

Red swaps the hand he holds Green’s with, still at his chest, but arm now trapped beneath him. It lets him lean in then, resting his head on the inner part of Green’s shoulder. If Green stiffens, Red can’t tell; he just squeezes Green’s hand in his, relishes in the smell of his jacket and shirt. _Smells like home._

 

Home.

  
  
  
  


Would he want to be like this with anyone else? Maybe, there’s a _someone else_ out there. A someone else yet to be met, someone better, or whatever the case. But in this moment, now, with uncertainty just as present as possibilities—

No. With possibilities _louder_ than doubt; with the two of them drained but comforted, side to side, together.

Together.

 

Together.

  
  


This is what we want.

  
  
  
  
  


 

 

“Red.”

  
  


Green squeezes his fingers.

  
  


“Green.”

  
  


Red squeezes back.

  
  
  


“Wanna go on a date?” Red asks.

“Again?”

“Nope. First time.”

“I took you on a picnic,” Green points out—and is met with silence. _"_ _Please_ tell me you figured out that was—”

“Shut up,” Red grumbles, rubbing his cheek against Green. Not as cushion-y as a Snorlax, unfortunately. Still, he’ll do. “I got you a birthday cake.”

“Ate most of it,” Green retorts.

“I was mad.”

“You would’ve anyway.”

“Sure,” Red easily admits. “Did you find your present.”

There’s no reply, so Red leans up awkwardly, refusing to drop Green’s hand and make life a little easier for himself (typical). He sees Green dipping fingers around his chest—and out he pulls a small silvery thing, tags clinking, and a smile burrows into his cheeks to remember: _Champion Smart Guy._

Somewhere on one of them. Green looks from the tags to Red, and their eyes catch, holding, tighter than their hands. Red leans forward, noses bumping before he finds Green’s lips to kiss.

Soft yet firm, loud but quiet. Them, a contradiction. A wonderfully disastrous match.

Red pulls back, Green’s eyes fluttering open halfway, a tongue licking over where Red’s mouth had been.

“I wanted to,” Red whispers—then, louder: “Let’s try again.”

“Thought it was the first time.”

“Don’t be annoying. I’m being romantic.”

“You,” Green drones. “Romantic.”

“Romantic,” Red repeats.

“You’re too infuriating for that.”

“Uh huh, same back,” Red goes on, and Green grabs a fistful of Red’s jacket impatiently, tugging him in.

“Just shut up and keep kissing me,” he breathes, exasperated.

 

* * *

  
  
  
  
  


“So tell me how you got along with my pokémon.”

 

“Ask me again and I’ll throttle you in your sleep.”

 

“Heh.”

 

* * *

  
  
  
  


 

 

  1. Green is Green



 

  1. No matter what happens, wherever I go, there’s no one out there like him.



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

( commissioned art by [monicaNC](http://ncmonicanc.net/main/index.htm) / [alt](https://i.imgur.com/uc0GH82.jpg) )

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you to wren who beta'd a lot of the chapters. thank you to those who read!
> 
> thank you to mocha who this was always for. your original prompt: "red asking green out for a date in kalos", or to that effect.
> 
> yes i went the long way about it.


End file.
